


Kame: Shinobi of the Sand

by DarthChungus



Category: Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, Naruto
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Loneliness, Original Character(s), Post-Canon, Slow Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-17
Packaged: 2019-07-28 20:27:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 77,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16249202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarthChungus/pseuds/DarthChungus
Summary: Kame Hakiara is a ninja growing up in the Hidden Sand, fifty years after the Fourth Shinobi World War. He finds and forms his own ninja way through hardship and suffering. (Mostly OC cast) (No contradictions of canon) (5k words per day)





	1. Genin Arc Ch. 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like nothing more than to get feedback on my writing, so please give me any advice, positive or negative, corrections of mistakes I made, anything!

 

**(A/N) Welcome! This story is my response to Boruto, my own take on what a sequel to Naruto should have looked like, and I will do my damndest to avoid actively contradicting canon at any point. That said, if you notice any points where I did, or read anything you disagreed with, or have any feedback at all, I'd love to hear all of it!** **This is my only running fanfiction story, and I try to update it with 4-6k word chapters at least twice a week barring any personal or family issues.**

* * *

_Looking back on the days where we were all genin, it still surprises me how sure I was about what my path would be. I suppose all children must be like that, yet with the benefit of hindsight now, I can only see myself as a misguided fool. I had a dream of becoming one of the greatest shinobi, yet I made so many mistakes along the way, so many decisions that ended poorly, and lost so many people forever._

_I suppose it's ironic that I spent so long chasing after that ideal of greatness, but now that I've reached that final goal of mine, I can safely way I'd trade it away to have back all the sacrifices I made. Then again, though, those came later, when the stakes were higher. At the very beginning, I was just a genin with no idea how important the choices I made really were... but then again, there was one choice I made that I will never regret._

_\- Kame Hakiara_

* * *

**Shinobi Union Registry Files (Genin) (Hidden Sand):**

**Date: 50 A4 (50 years after Fourth Shinobi World War)**

**Academy Exam Graduation Data: Kame Hakiara**

Ninjutsu: A  
\- Notes:  _Multiple nature transformations and excellent grasp of basic jutsu_

Genjutsu: C  
\- Notes:  _Able to dispel and cast, but only at a bare minimum level_

Taijutsu: B  
\- Notes:  _Can hold his own against most other students, excellent aim with thrown weapons_

Appearance:  _Normal height (5'5") and weight (110 lbs), built on the thin side, short and messy sandy-blond hair. Typically wears utilitarian and many-pocketed clothing underneath Sand genin vest._

Attitude:  _Shows definite desire to excel but troubling resistance to work with other students less skilled than he is. Never disrespectful to teachers or in front of them, but also demonstrates dismissive behavior towards majority of his classmates._

History:  _Comes from the_ _Hakiara clan, which is relatively new to the Hidden Sand (only fourth generation residents), and migrated to the Sand from the Heat Devil Village partially through their war with the Hidden Leaf. Due to their traditions, Kame was raised in seclusion within the clan, though that meant isolation from other children, until he entered the academy. Immediately excelled due to extensive pre-academy training and natural drive, and graduated at the minimum age, fourteen._

* * *

"Kame Hakiara, pass with a score of ninety-eight out of a hundred," the teacher said, nodding to Kame as he walked down the row and towards the door. "It's been a pleasure teaching you."

"Thank you." Kame gave the man one last respectful nod, then exited through the side door out into the dirt ground of the academy's courtyard. Penned in on all four sides by the walls of the academy itself, the small yard was where he'd eaten most of his lunches for the last four years- but now, it was the site of his next test. All of the tables had been cleared away and benches moved to make room for a long line of targets and corresponding numbered spaces on the other side of the yard, each of which had five kunai and five shuriken laid on them.

Kame took his position on the number one at the furthest corner of the yard, testing the weight of the provided weapons to make sure they were standard issue.  _Two more tests_ , he thought to himself,  _and then I'm officially a genin of the Hidden Sand_. The genjutsu test had been relatively simple- just releasing the illusory genjutsu that the instructor laid on him, which he'd done successfully. Next came the taijutsu test, which had been a little trickier but not particularly problematic, and then the written test on ninja history and chakra theory, which he'd finished first out of the class and with an excellent score to boot.

As more and more students filed out of the written test classroom, the weapons teacher, Nagano, dropped down into the courtyard and scanned the assembled applicants. Nagano was by all appearances a prototypical Sand shinobi, clad in standard durable clothing underneath his sand chunin vest. However, Kame had learned from experience over the last four years that the man demonstrated his loyalty through unusual mediums: high standards and tough love to anyone under his tutelage.

Suddenly, he felt an odd urge to look up and obeyed it, glancing towards a third-story window looking down on the courtyard. There he saw a flash of white and blue motion, but it was gone almost immediately and he was left mildly confused.  _Who would-_

His curiosity was interrupted when, now that apparently everyone who would come out here, had, Nagano began barking out instructions: "Everyone listen up! This is your final exam for weapons use, and I think that you can probably figure out what it is based on what's sitting right in front of you."  _We're to demonstrate a minimum accuracy level_ , Kame reasoned, all traces of the white blur now gone from his mind. All the tests up to this point had been pass-or-fail and weeded out a few unskilled students each, so it stood to reason that this one would be the same. The targets on the far wall, perhaps ten meters away, were large wooden ones suspended by nails, each a meter wide and with three concentric circles around a bullseye.

"On the other hand, some of you are complete idiots, so I'm gonna explain it anyway!" Nagano pointed towards the targets. "You sorry lot are to throw five consecutive shuriken towards those targets. If you can get at least three of them to stick in the inner ring, you pass, and if you can't, you fail! I can pass or fail you on my own, regardless of the rules, so if you're planning to slide by on a technicality then get a new plan."

The line of twenty or so students readied themselves to throw their shuriken, and on his shout of "Go!" the throws began. Kame steadied his breathing, assumed the stance that was well-written into his memory, and narrowed his vision in on the target before releasing with a flick of his wrist. The shuriken whizzed forward and sank into the very edge of the eight-inch-diameter bullseye. He readied another one, wound up, and repeated the process four more times, ending up with four bullseyes and one hit into the inner ring.

He then leaned back into the wall and waited as the other students made their own attempts, glancing around in boredom until he felt an urge to look up towards one of the windows looking down into the yard. Once he looked up there, he caught the faintest glimpse of a white form- but it was gone as soon as he noticed it, and his attention was brought back to earth by Nagano's shouting: "Alright, now if you're looking at your unsatisfactory performance and finally realizing just how useless you are, don't worry! You get one more chance, this time with the kunai!"

Kame picked up said kunai and grabbed it by the hilt, weighing it one more time before launching it towards the target. Once there, it stabbed point-first into the wood and sank in a centimeter, shaking free one of the less-secure shuriken. The next three kunai went much the same way, two more hitting the bullseye and one plunking into the inner ring. The last one, though, he got overconfident on and flung directly into one of his own shuriken, which it promptly bounced off of and missed the target completely.

Nagano strode over from his position behind the students to congratulate Kame: "Excellent! Exemplary work, Kame!" The teacher marked down the final results on a clipboard, continuing in a proud tone. "You pass the kunai and shuriken test with flying colors." Kame cracked a smile; he'd managed to perform significantly above the passing requirements with seven bullseyes, two inner-ring hits, and one that would have been a bullseye were it not for the shuriken in the way.

"Thank you, Nagano-sensei. May I move on to the next test?" He'd left some interesting experiments at his home, and the sooner he finished with the academy graduation exam the sooner he'd get to finish them.

"Actually, Kame, I'd like you to stay until the other students are finished. You can sit down over there for now." Nagano pointed towards one of the viewing benches behind the range and Kame complied, walking over to it and taking a seat.  _Well, I guess if I can't move on, I might as well check out some of my competition_ , he thought. Looking at the other students, the majority of them were clearly average, but a few were noticeably unable to complete the requirements.  _Which is weird,_  he thought,  _because historically ninja have been held to much higher standards at much earlier ages._ In the decades of peace after the Fourth Shinobi World War, the ninja villages had less need of soldiers and so children had significantly more time to be... well, children. Kame, as well as most of his classmates, was now fourteen, the minimum age to graduate into a genin squad.  _The ninja before had to pass these tests at a much younger age, but most of my classmates can't even do very well with all those extra years, huh?_

Although he could have named most of the students, there were a few that he didn't recognize by appearance- Due to the class system in the Hidden Sand, students were placed with different kids for each of their classes in order to keep familiarity with all of the other students but to prevent any close friendships (at least until the genin teams were established). Despite this, he'd developed a repartee with a few of the other students, namely Tetsute Hasagi and Rakuyo Kuyanari. They shared the projectiles class and as the top three performers they'd developed a healthy little competition that soon became a friendship. Kame, who hadn't had many friends growing up, had gravitated towards the other two hard workers in his classes, and soon they would meet after hours to practice their jutsu or even just talk. Tetsute's short brown hair and eyes did little to distract from his ever-present smirk, but the few people who took offense at his attitude had quickly learned their lesson and left the burly boy alone.

Looking over at him, Kame noticed his rival had managed two bullseyes. He held his breath as the boy lined up his final throw, but released it in a sigh when he noticed the stance and alignment. As expected, Tetsute, like him, got cocky on his final toss and missed the target completely- still easily passing, but not cracking Kame's accomplishment. He appeared to have the same conversation with the teacher and then walked over and sat down next to Kame.

"Hey, bro, guess who just got seven bullseyes and an inner circle?" Tetsute smirked and opened his arms wide in glory.

Kame laughed out loud. "Me. And I got two inner circles instead of one, so... you lose."

Tetsute's face fell and he narrowed his eyes. "Did you practice especially just to beat me?"

He stared suspiciously at his rival, but Kame kept his face bemused. "I don't need to practice especially to beat  _you_."

"Ohh…" Rakuyo walked up from behind Kame, black ponytail bobbing as she stifled a laugh behind her hands. Her hazel-green eyes sparkled with amusement at the well-delivered insult. "You just gonna take that, Tetsute?"

Tetsute rolled his eyes, although there was a little glimmer of anger underneath at being humiliated in front of his schoolboy crush. "Whatever. I beat you at taijutsu, so we're even."

"Actually, I think I win this one, boys." Rakuyo held up ten fingers. "All bullseyes. Feel free to bow in adoration now." Kame raised an eyebrow and Tetsute mock-bowed before shaking his head.

He appeared to count something on his fingers and then said, "So that puts Rakuyo at the top with first place in weapons and second place in taijutsu, and me in second with first place in taijutsu and third place in weapons. How's it feel to be the weakest link, huh, Kame?"

"You're forgetting the written test. I got first, you second, and Rakuyo third; so now we're all tied up." Kame smiled. "I guess it all comes down to the ninjutsu test, huh?" Tetsute simply smiled and cracked his knuckles while Rakuyo stretched hers. "Well, may the best ninja wi-" Kame was cut off by Nagano's voice ringing out across the courtyard.

"Well, regardless of results, I'm proud of each and every one of you-  _not_. If you failed here, have fun taking another year where I try my absolute hardest to keep you from sucking more. That means you; Naburo, Kekeno…" As the sensei listed off all of the failures, the usual suspects walked out, sulking or pretending not to care. All in all, Kame counted ten kids who were unable to pass, leaving ten more standing in the courtyard. However, the last of those ten names came as a mild surprise to Kame: "And Haku."

 _Haku?_  Kame searched his mind and couldn't remember a student named Haku. He knew most of his classmates' names by now, if not from seeing them then by hearing Tetsute or Rakuyo mention them.  _How did I miss a person?_  As he searched his mind, his question was answered as a tall girl in a worn purple coat strode up to the teacher and started arguing with him. Curious, he detached himself from his two friends and drifted over, eavesdropping unobtrusively.

When he got a good look at her, his heart skipped a beat. She was striking, prettier than he'd expected from the antisocial girl hiding in the corner, with purple hair, purple eyes, and pale skin, standing as all as he was. Her face was dejected as she talked at the teacher, getting more and more so as he got within earshot and listened closely.

Nagano's voice was stern. "I'm sorry Haku, but you simply did not meet the requirement."

"I… I don't… why won't you let me pass? I hit the target every time…"

"Haku, the purpose of this exercise was to show that you can land at least two shuriken  _or_  kunai into the inner circle of a target. You demonstrated that you can hit the outer circle of the target, but you simply don't have the-" Nagano's lecture was cut off as Haku talked over him.

"But you let Genji pass, and he didn't get it done either!"

"Genji has regularly passed all tests up to this point, and I'm confident that this time was just a fluke." Nagano sighed as the girl did something. Looking up, Kame saw that she was picking up a stray shuriken from the ground and getting into a ready stance. She lined up her throw, and Kame could already see that it wasn't going to hit. He stepped in right before she released and called out.

"Wait, stop." Nagano and Haku both looked back, the former annoyedly. Nagano's face changed as he recognized one of his star pupils, but Haku's eyes widened as she straightened up and turned to face him.

"Why… do you want to say something about me?" She seemed defensive and he made a mental note to watch how he talked to her.

"No, I'm here to help you pass. If you'd thrown the shuriken like that, you'd have missed the target completely." Kame explained, holding up his palm in a gesture of peace.

Haku's eyes became puzzled and confused for a brief moment, before hardening again. "I don't know why you want to help me, but please just leave me alone, I can handle this." With that, she lined up to throw again, aiming towards the target. Kame visualized the path her shuriken would take- it would go too low and hit the widened base of the wooden target, a good foot or two away from the actual bulls-eye.

She drew back, and he interjected once more: "Haku, stop." When she turned again, her cheeks were flaming and she bit her lip rather than respond, so Kame filled in the silence. "Okay, just get into your stance but don't throw." After a brief moment of stillness, she did as he said and dropped into a ready stance. He reached forward and moved her arm down a little bit, rolled her wrist back, and then backed up. "Okay, now try it."

Haku glanced back at him briefly, but like before seemed to lose her nerve and drop her gaze to the ground before turning around and throwing the kunai. This time, with the added control granted by a mobile wrist and the added power from a full arm extension, she was able to send the kunai streaking forward and plunging into the inner circle- admittedly only barely, and at an odd angle, but it  _was_  there alongside another two more of her kunai.

She smiled hesitantly, turning around and looking hopefully at Nagano, then gratefully towards Kame before striding off towards the ninjutsu testing classroom. Nagano opened his mouth but then appeared to think better of it, stopping himself, then shrugging and walking away. He muttered, "Well, she sure as hell isn't gonna pass the ninjutsu test, so she's someone else's problem now."

Kame blinked a few times, slightly confused as to why he'd just helped her.  _I've never really had an urge to help my classmates before_ , he thought,  _so why...?_  He was still lost in thought when Rakuyo ran up and slapped him on the back. "What's the big idea running off like that? Why are you messing with Kodoku?"

"No, I just… Kodoku? I thought her name was Haku." He craved more information.

"She's a weird one... are you sure that you don't remember her? I feel like we've definitely talked about her before. She's in my ninjutsu class and she can't even perform basic jutsu; I really don't understand what her problem is. She should've given up a long time ago, but..." Rakuyo trailed off briefly, then brightened up a bit. "Hey, have you heard of Might Guy?"

Kame remembered his research on all the greatest ninja of the modern age. _Might Guy..._  he suddenly remembered who she was talking about:  _oh, yeah! Might Guy, wasn't he the one who fought and lost to Madara Uchiha after Madara absorbed the tentails?_  "Yeah, the Leaf's taijutsu master. His ninjutsu and genjutsu were nonexistent, though, so I wrote him off at first…"

Rakuyo laughed. "You'd think so, right? But he was recognized as strong by Madara himself and... Anyway, Haku reminds me of those stories, except her attitude isn't respectful or diligent enough to achieve anything near that level. Back when she first enrolled, she was decent at taijutsu, but pretty soon me and Tetsute showed her her place and now she's actually pretty pathetic. She doesn't even try to stand up for herself when people... anyway, I don't know what she expects is gonna happen in the ninjutsu test. Hey, wait a minute, how the hell did she even pass the genjutsu test!?" Rakuyo seemed annoyed.

Kame considered for a moment but then realized that they were late for the final test on ninjutsu. "Let's go, we don't want to fail by default."

"Heh, Tetsute would never let us hear the end of it." Rakuyo jogged off towards the classroom and he followed along, seeing that the location was the same stark classroom where they'd been learning and practicing their basic jutsu all year. They walked in and took the only two available seats, so Rakuyo ended up next to Tetsute and Kame was forced into the back, sharing a desk with Miriki Kosuki, the pretty-boy of their age group. The vain prick was examining his nails and occasionally shaking a length of perfectly-kept dark hair out of his bright blue eyes, completely ignoring him as he sat down.  _I can't believe Loverboy passed all of the tests leading up to this..._  Kame turned to glance at his classmate again, but was surprised to see that the Kosuki boy was looking at him intently.  _What is he-_

His thoughts were cut off as the teacher looked around at all the students and then checked a list in his hands. "Alright, students, this is your final test before you get the chance to become genin, and I daresay it is also the most important! Ninja are best known, and for good reason, for their mastery of the ninjutsu style. Almost every rank chunin-or-higher ninja has a high level of mastery with several complex ninjutsu, but as new genin you are only expected to be able to perform a few basic ones. The one we'll be testing today is the clone jutsu!"

The class broke down into whispering and muttering, but neither Kame nor Miriki were fazed by the announcement. Kame's clone jutsu was both reliable and convincing- he'd mastered it quickly and moved on to more challenging ones. He might even show off a little for this-

"Kame Hakiara! As the strongest ninjutsu user in the class, would you like to demonstrate?" The instructor looked at him and he smiled.

"Of course". He made his way down the aisle and to the front of the class.

"Feel free to use the jutsu whenever you'd like," The instructor directed him. Kame smiled and then made the correct hand signs before focusing his chakra. He felt the power whirl within him and ordered it, as directed by the hand signs, to form into being beside him. With perfect focus, he mirrored the chakra creation with his own chakra network and then released the jutsu. Standing beside him was an exact copy of himself, which he turned and shook hands with.

"Very good job, Kame, you may return. Full marks." The instructor marked his score down on the clipboard and gestured him to go back to his place, which he did, dismissing the clone and returning to his seat.

The other classmates all went, some creating imperfect clones but all of them at least managing something. The instructor graded harshly this year, refusing to give points to those who made clones that did not appear similar to themselves. Miriki walked up and made a perfect clone on his turn, as did Rakuyo and Tetsute. Kame couldn't wait to form a team with the latter two, as soon as everyone finished their testing. As the classroom of ten or so ninja students finished up, only Haku was left.

Her name was called and she walked up slowly, head hung, and he started when someone gently placed their hand on his shoulder. He turned to see Miriki looking at her sadly and speaking in a soft, unnecessarily harmonious voice: "She's not going to be able to do it. Not for lack of trying, but she's been incapable of it all year."

Kame frowned, turning back towards Haku's display. He looked on as she made the handsigns perfectly and channeled her chakra, but he didn't need any visual kekkeigenkai to see what was going on- she didn't have enough focus or chakra control, and the chakra she sent out to form the clone was simply dissipating. After a few seconds Tetsute laughed and he felt even worse. She responded by tilting her head downwards more and starting to straighten up.

Kame's impulse pushed him and before he knew what he was doing he flashed through several handsigns and sent out his own chakra beside her. He formed his chakra correctly and managed to cast two jutsu in perfect unison, which resulted in a figure appearing beside Haku out of nowhere. His combination clone and transformation jutsu made it look like she'd successfully, if a bit sloppily, made a clone of herself. He hadn't had her chakra network to work with, so it only looked somewhat like her, but another student had been passed despite making a clone that was far worse so Kame's should be up to par.

She jerked up and glanced beside her at the clone of herself, then looked around the room trying to mask her confusion. The instructor squinted at the clone and then at Haku, before looking up at the rest of the classroom, his eyes finally settling on Kame. He peered at Kame, and then at the clone, and then appeared to consider briefly, but Kame already knew the outcome. They would never fail their star pupil for something like this, and they probably didn't want to teach the crippled Haku for another year, so the logical outcome would be for them to simply let it go and pass her.

"Haku, you… pass. Go take your seat." She bit her lip again and darted back to her seat, so Kame dismissed the jutsu.  _Wait,_  he thought,  _what the hell did I just do? I barely even know her and now I'm helping her pass this test?_

Miriki beside him whispered, "Hey dude, nice one! Although, why would you help her- do you even know her?" Kame shrugged and sat back in his chair. He was as confused as Miriki was about the matter. In fact, he was so focused on himself that he failed to notice Miriki's hands releasing a jutsu of his own.

"Alright, class, if you're still in this room, you've shown acceptable levels of competence in every basic aspect of shinobi arts. Congratulations! You may now all come and receive your headbands, and carved onto the back of the metal you'll find your ninja identification numbers. The first number in that long string of them is your team number, which is also the classroom you will go to to meet with your squadmates tomorrow. Once again, congratulations. As soon as you pick up your headband you are officially a Sand village genin." All six of the remaining students walked up to the teacher to receive their headbands one after the other, and Kame winced at the scorching glare that the teacher gave him on his turn.

The room cleared out very quickly, after which Kame met up with Rakuyo and Tetsute outside. They all wore their headbands on their foreheads with big smiles on their faces. "We did it!" They shared an awkward three-way high-five. Maybe it wasn't rare for students to graduate the academy on their first attempt, but it definitely wasn't a minor achievement. Although Kame had been confident that he'd pass while going into the test, it was still reassuring to know that he'd put the milestone behind him.

Suddenly, a thought occurred to him. "Uh, guys?" They turned and their faces fell somewhat as they saw the worried expression on his face.

"What?" They asked in unison.

"If they gave us our squad assignments, then that means we aren't choosing for ourselves, which means we might not be together…" He did his best to keep his voice hopeful, but in reality he was panicking a little bit. A ninja's squad was important, they'd be together for their entire careers and he didn't want to end up alone with two weirdos. He hadn't been present for the fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds' graduations, which meant that there was probably a large pool of possible ninja for him to end up on a team with.

He tried to remain confident despite the panic that he usually suffered when his larger plans went awry starting to set in. "No, I'm sure that they… Well, I mean, we can check." He pulled off his own headband, flipped it over, and looked at it. It read: "8. Well, did you guys get Eight?" He looked up hopefully at his only two friends, who slowly shook their heads.

"No, I got seven." Tetsute said apologetically.

"Hey! I got seven, too!" Rakuyo smiled at him. They high-fived again, elated to be on the same team after all. Kame tried to be happy for them.

"Wow, that's… really great, I guess…" He said sadly. They didn't even notice his suddenly depressed spirit and he walked away without another word. As he left the academy grounds, he noticed Haku walking off towards the wall of the city, head down and hands in her pockets. For some reason, there was very little memory about her- which was incredibly strange, given how amused Rakuyo had been by her.  _She talked about it like it was an inside joke between us..._

Shaking his head to clear his mind, Kame made it home without a hitch, coming in and immediately setting some water to boil. Both his parents were Sand shinobi and were out on missions at the moment, leaving him to take care of himself. This wasn't an uncommon situation; after he'd turned eleven they'd recommitted to their jobs as Land of Wind border security. In fact, they'd earned enough repute to be in the reinforcement corps, a special squad that rapidly moved around the border constantly to counter shifting threats and situations.

Kame's earlier years had been fairly isolated, in the tradition of the Heat Devil Village. Children there were raised purely within the clan and trained from a young age, but due to their clan's relative lack of other people he'd been kept from  _all_  other children. His time had been filled with books and reading, and although he'd like to call it 'research', honesty demanded that he admit to himself that it was really just him obsessing over stories of famous ninja. He had very garbled memories of being resistant to ninja training at first, but that had all changed once he'd started to read accounts of historical ninja's exploits. Kame had fallen in love almost immediately with the tales of Gaara, Naruto, and Sasuke unleashing unbelievable powers to beat back terrible threats and save the world with their own hands.

From that point until the present day, his dream had been to become a household name like them. He didn't just want to be a ninja, he wanted to be one of the great ones. To blaze his own path, despite not having a kekkeigenkai or a tailed beast, and achieve the sort of lasting greatness that later generations would be learning about in  _their_  history classes. His parents had been glad to teach him until age eleven, at which point his parents had gotten their promotion and they'd started rapidly going all over the Land of Wind's border, shifting from town to town. That kind of constant movement wasn't the best for raising a child, much less a child trying to focus on their education, so they'd opted to leave him at home alone far more than most kids his age- which, to be fair, he didn't really mind. The peace and quiet gave him time to think and also to work on his paperbombs.

He'd found and decided a while ago that he had an affinity for the ninja tools, and quickly learned how to create and disarm them. Ever since, he'd been experimenting with different levels of power and area, along with trying to compress the runes for greater efficiency. So far, he'd managed to create not only an array of varyingly strong bombs, but also a few specialty ones like the flame-spreading one he'd dubbed a 'firebomb'. That one had required his fire release to work, but now it was a special edge in any fight he had-  _or will be, once I get into an actual fight._ Due to the highly destructive nature of paperbombs, Kame had been ill-suited for the casual sparring matches that had been his only chance at fighting other shinobi so far.

He heard the water finish and made himself some instant noodles, taking them into his workshop and starting to experiment with trying to streamline the detonation process. Perhaps if he could infuse an air-based change of nature while creating the change in nature, the explosion would become more forceful and less damaging. A concussive bomb could prove very useful for both non-lethal uses and also as a way to move things around.  _Okay then, let's see what we can do with this,_  he thought as he dove in to work on using the new idea. As Kame's hands busied themselves with drawing up the paperbomb's seal, the familiar motions comforted him enough to bring his thoughts to a more positive tone: _Whoever I end up with, I'm sure I can make it work_.

 


	2. Genin Arc Ch 2

**Shinobi Union Registry Files (Active Genin) (Hidden Sand):**

**Academy Graduation Exam Data: Miriki Kosuki**

Ninjutsu: C  
\- Notes:  _Decent grasp of basic jutsu and single nature transformation despite obvious lack of effort_

Genjutsu: B  
\- Notes:  _Adept at utilizing, detecting, and neutralizing genjutsu of all types_

Taijutsu: D  
\- Notes:  _Physically weak and resistant to changing that, no particular talent or skill_

Appearance:  _Normal height (5'5") and weight (122 lbs), physical build also typical, medium-length and permanently styled black hair. Typically forgoes Sand genin vest and instead wears long white coats with expensive clothing underneath._

Attitude:  _Shows very little desire for improvement, only really demonstrates growth in genjutsu. Socially very popular, though a few students are openly hostile towards him, and proves to be a distraction for many female students. This seems to go both ways, as he also_ _pays more attention to chasing girls than his teachers._

History:  _Comes from Kosuki clan, a prominent and incredibly wealthy clan of the Hidden Sand, and is the child of the current clan head. Grew up rich and respected by most people around him, yet is impressively tactful, which is less than surprising. The Kosuki clan, while never producing ninja, historically have proven to be highly successful in economics and politics both. Miriki's decision to join the academy and break from the tradition of a long line of pacifists is an unexpected one, and at somewhat at odds with his lackadaisical attitude towards ninja training._

* * *

Kame blinked his way back into the world of the waking, groaning as he pried himself off his worktable. He'd been more tired out than he thought by the stress of the graduation testing and must have fallen asleep at his station, which could have been bad.  _I've r_ _eally got to pay better_  attention, he thought, _one of these days I'll blow myself up if I'm not careful..._

Noticing that it was almost time to leave for the academy and his squad placements, he threw together a quick breakfast and hurried out the door.  _Can't be the last one there, that's definitely a bad way to start things off with my team._  He jogged all the way there, fastening his headband on as he went and returning greetings from the occasional friendly neighbor until he finally arrived at the academy.

He strode in the open door and past all the other excited students, but froze when he saw Rakuyo and Tetsute chatting happily outside their own classroom. He briefly debated talking to them, but stopped when he saw them laughing and enjoying themselves without him.  _Better not to twist the knife in deeper_ , he thought bitterly, _and at least let them be happy_.

Turning down the hall he saw the classroom sign on the right labeled Eight and braced himself to meet his new teammates. Thinking hard, he decided that he probably wanted some of the more skilled upper age group ninja, honestly he didn't care specifically who as long as they were somewhat competent.  _Whoever is up there listening to thi_ _s, please let me get some squadmates who are skilled ninja_ , he thought.  _Actually, I can be the ninjutsu specialist of the squad… let them be decent taijutsu and genjutsu users, I guess._

Finally he got up the necessary confidence and pushed the door open to be confronted with an empty classroom. Checking the clock, he saw that he was right on time…  _So why isn't anybody here?_  he wondered.  _I guess I might as well_ _take a seat._  He slid into a chair in the front row and absentmindedly pulled out a paperbomb, one of the ones he'd developed last night. The blast was now a burst of wind that had much greater concussive power, at the cost of any heat or flame whatsoever.

As his hands worked, an idea struck him- If he managed to make it into a paper airplane of sorts, then he could send it out on its own in special flight patterns and detonate it remotely. He became so wrapped up in his little project that he jumped at the sudden noise of the door opening.

Looking up, he saw a black-haired figure wearing a long white coat back into the room. "Sorry, babe, but I need to be getting to my important ninja training now!" Miriki Kosuki waved one last goodbye to the giggling girl in the hallway and then turned around to see Kame holding his head in his hands. "Oh, hey, Kame! How's it going,  _new teammate_?"

Kame sent up a silent complaint.  _When I said a genjutsu specialist, I didn't mean this guy_. "Uh, hey there, Miriki, so… you're going to be on my team, huh? That's… great." He tried to hide his ramping disappointment at losing Tetsute and Rakuyo and getting the resident ladies' man as a replacement. Still, there might be hope in the last ninja on their team…

"Hey, don't write me off just yet, okay?"

Kame's head shot up as his eyes became confused.  _How did Miriki know what I was thinking?_  "What? I'm not… I don't mean to offend you, it's just that you don't seem very powerful and in our shared classes you didn't demonstrate an aptitude for anything except genjutsu, which you also weren't particularly skilled at."

Miriki shrugged. "Eh, that's fair. However, you haven't seen me really try yet; you might be pleasantly surprised… anyway, do you know who our last member will be?" He also took a seat in the middle of the classroom. "Whoever they are, they're late."

With perfect timing, the door banged open and a girl strode through it hurriedly. Kame's jaw dropped and his eyes opened wide, as his brain was too busy registering the extreme irony of his situation. The kunoichi who walked in was mostly covered up by a dirty, worn-out purple coat, her face shaded by the hood, but the flash of her purple eyes was enough for Kame to identify her.

Miriki greeted her. "Haku! Wow, did we luck out today. We've got the strongest masters of each respective branch of jutsu on our squad!"

That was a very positive way to think about it. "Yeah, but you can't do taijutsu, I'm no good at genjutsu, and she can  _only_ do taijutsu."

Haku threw back her hood, but wouldn't meet his eyes. "I… I can handle myself."

A sudden little flare of competitiveness awakened inside him and he opened his mouth without thinking. "Just like you handled yourself at the ninjutsu test yesterday? I had to save you from flunking back to the academy for another year." He regretted the words the instant they left his mouth, but it was too late.

Haku looked taken aback and immediately opened her mouth to issue a retort. However, the words never left her, and she just looked back at the ground. "Thanks for that. But now… now that I'm out of there, I can succeed as a ninja, even if I don't have ninjutsu or genjutsu."

Kame frowned. "Or you could work with the team and we could make up for each others' shortcomings…?" He tossed out the peace offering and she quieted, shrugging her agreement and sitting down cross-legged on the floor at the front of the classroom.

"Now then, where's our squad leader? He's awfully late, this might be a bad sign about him…" Miriki complained, sighing and sitting back in his chair. "Maybe he just doesn't care enough to even arrive?" Kame thought,  _I guess that would make him your kind of person, eh_? As much as Haku confused him, Miriki flat-out annoyed him, with his endless hitting on girls to his extremely unprofessional attitude towards almost everything. He might belong to an incredibly wealthy family, but that shouldn't excuse him from the same standards of conduct that everyone else conformed to.

"Nope!" The door that Haku had carefully closed behind herself was literally kicked off of its hinges, and a man staggered through it. His ruddy red hair was a disheveled mess, and his cheeks were covered with stubble, clearly in desperate need of shaving. His eyes were at first wild and then dulled a bit as he bent over and panted for a good ten seconds before speaking again in a slightly slurred voice: "You... you all're... what was I...?" he trailed off, before looking downcast. "Oh yeah, you're the new kids I have to babysi- I mean, teach."

Kame immediately straightened up and respectfully bowed to the man. "Deihaka-sensei! I am honored to be on the team of such an important ninja." He was relatively new as a jonin, but climbed the ranks somewhat quickly out of nowhere. After flying under the radar for years, at age thirty-one he'd ascended from genin to jonin in a few short months. _His jutsu specialty i_ s… Kame tried to remember...  _Oh yeah, the magnet release, like the Third Kazekage._

Deihaka smiled faintly at the praise. "I'm glad that you heard of me..." The three genin in the room turned to look at him as silence dragged on for more painful seconds, until he seemed to notice the situation and start talking again: "Right. You may be sand chunin now... wait, no, sand genin, but I'm still your superior and I have the right to send you back to the academy. Looking at you, I don't know if I wanna do this teacher thing..." Miriki opened his mouth to protest, but Deihaka just kept talking. "I'm giving you a chance to prove me wrong, though, so... follow me."

They walked out from the academy and Kame noticed that no other group had left their classroom. "I'm sorry, Deihaka-sensei, but why aren't any other groups doing this? Are we the only ones who performed unsatisfactorily?"

Deihaka didn't turn, but responded almost... shyly? "Don't worry 'bout it."  _He's trying to act mysterious,_  Kame noticed,  _but he's not a very good actor. Whatever the reason for this test is, it isn't to gauge our individual combat abilities._ They made it to the doors of the arena and stepped in to find it empty of any ninja. On the sandstone floor, there were scattered wooden structures and ninja tools, random at first glance, but as Kame looked closer there were far too many to be just left over from another group.

Haku took off her ragged, tattered coat to reveal an outfit comprised of a purple collared top and a short skirt, with bandages poking out onto her arms, legs, and midriff. Miriki was clad in his usual flowing white robelike coat. Kame swallowed his annoyance; he'd always harbored a tiny little disgust with people who didn't wear typical ninja garb. It screamed of insecurity and neediness. Haku's was semi-acceptable kunoichi wear, but Miriki looked like some sort of fashionable monk.

His attention was yanked from the clothing of his squadmates when Deihaka stopped in the middle of the arena and pulled out two bells. "This is a little trial that I learned from the Hidden- I mean, made up myself, and I think it's a good test of a team's capability. Here's how this's gonna work: I'm gonna stay in this arena for ten minutes, 'n at the end of the minutes, whoever has a bell gets to stick around on the team and whoever doesn't will go back to th' academy. You can attack me as much as you want... don't be afraid to hurt me, I can take it." He hiccuped and swayed a little unsteadily.

Kame felt he needed to speak. "But sensei, there are only two bells- does that mean one of us is guaranteed to go back to the academy?"

Deihaka shrugged. "You figure it out. Now, go!"

The instant he said the word, Haku darted so fast she was a blur, coming back up behind him and swinging out a leg. Kame froze in shock at the display of speed- he hadn't even had time to register the trial starting.

Deihaka got a hand up to block the strike from hitting his head and leaped back. "Ugh, I'm a jonin and you're a genin... what makes you think you can just-" He broke off as she charged him again. "Why're you doing this?" She didn't respond, coming at him straight with a raised fist. Deihaka boredly made the correct block with his hands as she closed the last few feet- but then she blurred again and ended up upside down, supported on her bent elbows underneath and past the block, kicking a leg straight up towards the jonin's chin. Kame leaned forward; with the power of that kick the fight could be over on the spot.

However, it stopped just short of Deihaka's chin, blocked by… something. As little flecks of metallic dust trickled down, Kame realized what it was:  _The magnet release! He used it to block the strike last minute with a shield!_  Deihaka grabbed Haku's exposed leg and flung her away from him, sending her rolling to a stop.  _She's slower to get up now, that must have injured or dazed her,_  Kame thought.

He decided to test out Deihaka's defenses with his newest invention and began folding in his hands. Meanwhile, Deihaka was lecturing the downed Haku. "You see... this's why you won't... you're not gonna have success as a ninja with only taijutsu. Against some enemies, it isn't enough- I don't care how strong or fast you are, your bones'll break before my iron sand does."

 _Done_. Kame raised his arm and tossed a fan of kunai at the ground below Deihaka as he talked. The jonin immediately reactively leaped up into the air, as expected. "Did you really expect a few kunai to work...? Aren't you supposed to be a tactics prodigy, why're- what?" His lecture broke off as Kame's sneakily tossed paper airplane flew towards him. He shouldn't be able to dodge in midair, so it should at least force him to bring out the iron sand.

However, Deihaka out-thought him, creating a platform of iron from thin air and pushing himself to the ground. "C'mon, I'm a jonin... gimme me at least a little respect." Kame only smiled as his plane sailed through the air past Deihaka, angling upward more and more until it was coming back the way it came, and then down at the unsuspecting target. Its loop completed, it flew straight down towards Deihaka.

At the last minute the Sand jonin's eyes flicked up and he noticed the missile, but it was too late. Kame made the correct handsign and the plane exploded mere inches from Deihaka's head.  _Wait- maybe that was too far, I could have killed him…_ As the smoke cleared, however, his doubts were assuaged as he saw the ninja standing there unharmed, a shield of iron sand protecting him. Upon closer inspection, though, the tip of one of his boots was charred.

 _So he has a limited supply of the iron sand_ , thought Kame.  _Maybe_   _if I hit him from enough sides, I can spread the damage enough to- yeah, that's it. I'll need some time to prepare, and I have to hope that Miriki and Haku don't beat him in that time._  He turned back and began attaching paperbombs to some twine and looping it into a kunai.

Looking back, he noticed that Miriki had disappeared, where to he didn't know. Haku was still on the ground, out of it for the moment, leaving Kame alone to face his opponent. He made sure to quickly finish up his preparations before standing and throwing the two knives at either side of Deihaka, successfully landing them into the walls of the arena. "Feel like surrendering, Deihaka-sensei? I have you surrounded with paperbombs." Deihaka's eyes narrowed as his eyes fell to the offending bombs all around him.

"So I'm guessing that you're... you think you can spread out the sand until I run out, huh?" The iron in the air around him suddenly lost form and fell to the ground, no longer moving. "The thing is, Kame, I saw your little trick earlier with the handsign..." He shook his head as if to clear his mind and then looked back towards Kame. "Now I have a way out."

"What?" Kame didn't see what he meant.

"'Cause as long as a ninja's controlling something, and that something is dangerous, you can always just…" Kame suddenly felt something brushing against his leg and looked down in horror to see that Deihaka's iron sand had stealthily made its way across the ground from the jonin's feet to his own.  _Shit!_  Kame leaped backward and managed to escape the sand, but then felt a presence behind him in midair.  _I should have blown the explosives when I had the chance!_

"... Take out the ninja in charge." Deihaka finished while slamming a forearm onto Kame's head. The genin was knocked back to earth, hard, and the impact was enough to take away his breath. Deihaka landed back on the earth, outside the area with the paperbombs.

Kame moved backwards and pulled out two kunai that had paperbombs attached to their hilts. Turning, he saw Deihaka resume his position in the center of the arena, cockily spinning the bells around his fingers and whistling.  _Now's my chance!_  Kame fired the kunai off one after the other, and as he thought, Deihaka decided to show off and simply dodge them instead of using the sand shield.

He detonated the second one when it was a foot or so away from Deihaka's face, hoping to get lucky and score a hit. The jonin's eyes widened and the sand came up, too late, as Kame watched a wave of explosive energy envelop his teacher's face.

Deihaka cried out in pain and fell over, but didn't bleed- and Kame soon saw why, as the man's entire body slowly lost color and dissolved into sand. The real Deihaka stepped out from behind one of the wooden barricades, with a look nearing pride on his face as he looked at Kame's handiwork on his sand clone. "That was a fun little trick... nice one, but an attack, doesn't matter how strong, is  wasted when you use it on an opponent's clone."

"I know that- however, how else do you think I was going to draw the real you out?" Kame challenged, pulling out another special little thing he'd created only the previous night. It was a relatively light cube of folded paper with a windbomb within (the one with a wind change of nature).

He pulled out another two kunai and tossed them at Deihaka, following them up with the cube. His aim was true, and the ball sailed straight up over the enemy. While Deihaka was busy dealing with the knives, he detonated the concussive explosive within the ball, sending the outer layer of paper out with great speed and plastering the ground all around the detonation zone.

Deihaka's eyes widened as he noticed the change and he leaped backwards while putting up a shield in front of himself, barely getting out before the field detonated, but also stepping straight into Kame's trap. Kame had intentionally detonated the ball slightly early and placed the circular zone a little bit ahead of Deihaka, leaving him with a single option; to jump out on the nearest side and make a wall with his sand.

However, what he hadn't noticed was that in that direction laid the fallen paperbomb wires outlining a medium-sized area. The fight had knocked up enough dust to obscure them, but Kame had kept their location in mind since he'd laid them down. Deihaka paused for breath, unaware of the imminent danger, and Kame laughed. A single handsign was all he needed. "Now you're mine!" He made his fingers into the detonation handsign and the sand all around his opponent erupted with fourteen separate explosions.

The smoke was intense this time, and sand rained down from the sky, scattering all around- however, there was no iron sand mixed in with it. This heralded the sight he was about to lay eyes upon, which was Deihaka somehow managing to erect a wall around himself. "Where the hell did you get enough iron sand to pull that off?" Kame muttered angrily, frustrated at being thwarted.

"I can get the iron from nearby... I don't know, metal things. You assume way too much, and it's setting you back. In fact, in... uh..." Deihaka looked at the clock on the wall- "Two minutes, it'll set you back for another year at the academy."

Kame shook his head, still in disbelief that Deihaka could utilize such an ironclad defense. _How can I beat an opponent that can make defensive walls of unbreakable metal at will?_ He looked up in desperation at the man who would have been his teacher and gasped in surprise- Haku was not only conscious, but had somehow gotten behind the man and was leaping at him from behind.

Tipped off, Deihaka slowly turned, his wall starting to collapse inward, but it was too late. Haku landed inside his defense and slammed him directly in the face with a right hook that sent him flying ten meters, bouncing twice but managing to land in a makeshift crouch. His eyes flared in annoyance and trails of metal dust came streaming in towards him from all around the arena, but Haku was faster and reached him first, swinging her other fist towards his head. He dodged just in time for her to crunch her hand into the wall, sending a few spiderwebbed cracks out at the impact location. However, even as her attack "failed," her other hand was reaching towards the bells on Deihaka's waist, only for the iron sand to arrive and start to form a defense-

But the moment it came within a short distance of Haku, it slowed and even began to fall apart, leaving her free to grab the bells and roll backwards. The defensive move proved unnecessary, because Deihaka stopped fighting the moment she'd gotten her prize. In an unexpected move, though, she turned to toss one of her bells to Kame, who nearly let it fall past him due to his surprise. 

"We're..." Haku glanced at him but turned away just as quickly, seeming awkward all of a sudden. "We're even."

Before Kame could formulate an answer, Deihaka slowly stood up, stretching himself out a bit. "Well, I guess that's it then. Time's up, and Miriki isn't even-" At that exact moment, Miriki came charging in with a dinner bell clutched in his hand. Deihaka raised both eyebrows. "Miriki, what... what're you doing?"

"Well, you said 'at the end of the time whoever isn't holding a bell will go back to the academy' Deihaka-sensei, and now I'm here with a bell." Miriki smiled.

Kame started to yell at him but Deihaka beat him to it. "I meant the bells I have on me! Not some random bell that... I don't know, you probably stole from someone!"

"Hey! Firstly, I  _bought_  it from a nice vendor at the market! And secondly, you should have specified, then. Because your exact words were 'whoever doesn't have a bell at the end of the time is going back to the academy!'" Miriki said with a slow smile. Deihaka frowned and seemed to have a silent staring contest with the genin, before sighing and shrugging.

"Whatever... I guess it would be a pain to have to replace you in the squad." His voice dropped into a mumble. "Damn it, now I  _have_  to do this teacher thing."  _Was this whole thing a convoluted attempt to get out of work?_  "But, before I pass all of you, what was the purpose of this exercise? You sorta achieved it, although I don't think it was on purpose." Deihaka looked at them owlishly.

Kame thought for a moment before realizing. "Teamwork. The purpose of the test was to see if we could work as a team together to defeat you, despite there being less bells than people."

"Right! Anyway, I guess I accept you as my students, but missions don't start until tomorrow, so… How 'bout you go over your strengths 'n weaknesses so we can all get to know each other better? Oh yeah, also tell me why you wanna be a ninja."

Miriki replied first. "Okay then. My name is Miriki Kosuki, and I am a genjutsu specialist. I am still working on unlocking my clan's kekkeigenkai. My taijutsu is poor and my ninjutsu is decent, and I primarily use the Water nature." He said the entire piece confidently and smiled the whole time. "I want to be a ninja because it's a great way to pick up girls and annoy my family at the same time."

Kame grit his teeth, restraining himself from commenting on the other boy's ridiculous statement. He looked over at Haku, who seemed unwilling to go next, and shrugged. "All right then, my name is Kame Hakiara. I plan to specialize in tactics, ninja tools, and ninjutsu. I've used wind and fire changes of nature and I'm training to unlock earth. My taijutsu is decent and I can manage to release genjutsu but I have no talent for using them. My biggest accomplishment is the specialized paperbombs that I've made, which vary in utility and destructive power. I've also shown an aptitude for puppetry and art style ninjutsu, although the paper style I'm developing is what I hope to be my strongest asset. I want to be a ninja because I've admired the greatest shinobi since I was young and hope to..." He trailed off, feeling acutely awkward at actually stating his dream out loud.

Deihaka nodded slowly. "You're... you seem like you have some good potential, Kame. I'm gonna expect a lot from you." Kame nodded and hoped that the prideful blush he felt wasn't actually visible.

Haku looked left and right, then sighed, "Hello, my name is Haku. I don't have a last name because I came here an orphaned child and have no memory from before then. I'm great at taijutsu and and have large chakra stores, but something, I don't know what, has stopped me from channeling it into ninjutsu or genjutsu. Because of that, I've been spending all of my training time focusing on my taijutsu."

Deihaka frowned. "We're gonna have to see what's holding you back. Ninjutsu and genjutsu are important to be a ninja... anyway, you all can go home early for the day."

Haku seemed to turn and start attacking some of the training dummies, making the same kick over and over. Miriki, on the other hand, walked away towards the downtown area (probably looking for more girls to woo). Kame jogged off towards the rapidly disappearing Deihaka. "Deihaka-sensei! Please wait, I'd like to speak with you!"

"What is it?" Deihaka slowed slightly and allowed Kame to catch up and slide up next to him. "What is this about, Kame?"

Kame's eyes flashed down to the bottle that the jonin was surreptitiously sliding back into his vest.  _Wait, was he drunk this whole time? But..._ "Deihaka-sensei, while we fought you, I saw Haku's eyes change, and she stopped your sand jutsu. Is there something about her that she isn't telling us?" Kame didn't know of any jutsu that could turn off an opponent's jutsu that a genin would know. In addition, her speed was beyond a human level, no matter how hard she'd trained, Kame didn't think a normal person could not achieve that.

Deihaka looked away. "I… don't know anything about that. Are you sure you aren't just seeing things?" Although the words were spoken innocently, Kame's instincts were telling him that it was a lie. "Look, I need to give my report on the Genin in my squad to the Kazekage, so why don't you return home and go back to... I don't know, making more paperbombs?"

With that, the elder ninja leaped off towards the Kazekage's residence, leaving Kame alone to think. He briefly considered just walking away, but his curiosity was far too strong and he ran off after his squad leader, pulling out a small sheet of paper and small flash of chakra-infused ink.

After dipping the brush into it he channeled even more of his chakra into the brush itself, before drawing the sign for 'listen' and around it a small fly. When he arrived, he poured his intent into his drawing and then activated his art jutsu, bringing the ink to life. It peeled off the page and condensed into the shape of a small fly that immediately flew off towards the top level that he'd watched Deihaka enter. The Art style was something he'd briefly considered going more into, but as time went on he realized that due to how slow it was its users had to be able to make incredibly quick decisions. Kame was more of a slow, tactical analyzer, so he'd moved towards more adaptable techniques (while retaining his few utility Art jutsu).

Almost as an afterthought, he dropped one more paperbomb at his feet and started his wait. After a good twenty or so minutes, the fly came back out and landed on the paper. The ink it was made from seeped down and everything it had heard was transcribed right there. Kame looked down and started to read.

 _ **Deihaka**_ : Hello, Kazekage. The test went... well; all three members of squad eight passed.

 _ **Gaara**_ : Excellent. Those three in particular have the makings of incredibly powerful Shinobi. What happened with the Yorutsume clan girl? How has Haku progressed?

Kame paused. He hadn't realized that Haku had a clan- in fact, she herself had said she didn't have one. Was the village keeping a secret from them? He looked back down to see how the conversation went after that.

 _ **Deihaka**_ : She accidentally unlocked the first stage of the Yorutsume kekkeigenkai. However, she doesn't appear to have a clue about her seal or mark, so we're safe from that for the time being.

 _ **Gaara**_ : Try to keep her from manifesting either if you can.

 _ **Deihaka**_ : Yes, sir.

 _ **Gaara**_ : What about the Hakiara boy? He'd requested lessons with Kankuro, but I turned him down due to his age and lack of puppet style lineage. Do you thinks he's suited for it?

 _ **Deihaka**_ : Yes. He's a tactical prodigy and even workshops his own ninja tools. To be perfectly honest I don't think there's anyone who's more suited.

 _ **Gaara**_ **:** All right, I'll ask Kankuro to do it as soon as possible. For the time being, continue to monitor Haku.

 _ **Deihaka**_ : Of course. One more thing, though, sir. What should I do if the ten-

The paper was suddenly ripped from Kame's hands and shredded, the little pieces fluttering down to the ground. Kame gulped and slowly turned to see Deihaka himself standing there on the tree branch behind him.

"Whaddaya think you're doing, Kame?" Despite his voice slurring, Deihaka's face visibly burned with rage.

"Uhm… escaping?" Kame signed and the paperbomb at his feet detonated, exploding and spreading a large cloud of smoke. The moment it went off he leaped, but not away, just straight up. He stopped on a higher branch of the tree and cast the transformation jutsu, becoming an offshoot limb of the tree. He then sat there for five minutes, just to make sure Deihaka was gone, before dropping down and jogging off towards his home, with no sign of anyone chasing behind him.

He made his way home as quickly as he could without sprinting or drawing attention to himself, trying not to overthink his situation and scare himself. Spying on private conversations involving the Kage was a serious offense- the punishment for him could be bad.  _I might get sent back to the academy... or worse!_  Kame worried more and more. _What if they decide that I'm a spy? Why did I have to go and fulfill my curiosity!?_

He finally reached his house, a medium-sized building on the edge of the town, and jogged forward up the path to the door. The only real defining feature of the two-story home was the stone shed outside the main structure which contained his workshop. From the look of the place his parents had returned.  _Great, they're finally back. They've been gone for a whole week._

Kame stepped in the door and immediately regretted several decisions as he looked upon Deihaka, his father, and his mother all three standing in the living room with arms crossed.  _Shit! How did he beat me home!? Did he just head straight there as soon as I dropped the smokescreen!?_  He looked up and smiled weakly. "Soo… hey there, mom, dad, welcome back home… Deihaka-sensei, fancy seeing you here…"

They just stared angrily. His dad broke the awkward silence. "Deihaka has told us what you've done. What were you thinking!? You know our family is relatively new to the Hidden Sand, why would you do such a thing and make us look like traitors!?" He was right. As newcomers to the Hidden Sand who'd only been there for three generations, his family's position was precarious still-  _And what did I jeopardize it for_ , he thought,  _satisfaction of my passing curiosity!?_

"I am deeply sorry for what I did. Feel free to interrogate me or do whatever you see fit to do to confirm that I am not a spy." Kame bowed deeply, almost afraid to look back up and see the judgement in the eyes of the adults.

To his surprise, instead he felt a hand on his shoulder. Deihaka helped pull him up to look him in the eyes. "'s alright. We already did some deep background checks on your whole family 'cause of your… unique situation. Plus, we had some ANBU check in from time to time. You didn't show any suspicious activity up until this point, so since you have a believable reason for spying, I'll let you off with a warning this time."

Kame started to sigh in relief but was stopped by a sudden flash of seriousness in Deihaka's features. "But if you even sneeze in a suspicious way again, I'm not gonna take you this lightly, got it?"

Kame gulped. "Yes, sir."

Deihaka smiled and sat back. "Good, good. Now, I guess since you already read our whole talk, I need to go over some rules of... uh..." he scratched his head, searching for the correct word. "-Disclosure with you." Kame kept his face calm, although his heart was racing.  _He doesn't know I didn't finish reading the paper! This might be my chance to learn what I couldn't earlier_!

Deihaka sat down, motioning for Kame to do so as well. He ran through a long set of handsigns and then released a jutsu of some sort, making his hair blow a little bit and rapidly removing the flush from his face. After a few seconds, he shook his head quickly and turned to the mother and father and spoke in a much more lucid voice. "I'll have to ask you to leave the room for this conversation, as it contains sensitive village information." They complied, and judging by the jonin's response they didn't make any attempts to eavesdrop. "Well then, I suppose I should start off by telling you that you can speak of her jinchuriki nature, as well as her clan status, to absolutely no one, especially her."

Kame narrowed his eyes at the massive change in his squad leader.  _He was drunk for the entire testing process?_  However, curiosity about Haku kept him from pursing that thought any further, instead driving him to consider what Deihaka had just said. As far as he knew, all of the tailed beasts currently had jinchuriki, which meant that she was something special. "She doesn't know?" He tried to keep the conversation going.

"Well, no, she doesn't. When she staggered into the village five years ago, apparently she had no memories whatsoever. I'm told that the sealing mark used upon her was something we hadn't seen before. By analyzing its nature we came to the conclusion that it sealed a part of the ten-tails' chakra within her, although it will probably never come out. However, if she were to die then it's possible that the ten-tails, or at least a part of it, would be resurrected from her body, which we can't have.

"So, we decided to keep her alive but separate from the rest of the village in case the seal ever weakened. Lord Kazekage also arranged a way for her to receive food and be taught basic lessons until she was about eleven. Although most of the village elders preached that she should be forever kept far from others, when she declared her intention to become a shinobi, lord Gaara intervened on her behalf and allowed it.

"The elders agreed, but I believe they only did it due to the fact that the seal had also completely mutilated her chakra network and ruined any chance of normal jutsu casting for her- they assumed she'd  _fail the ninjutsu test and flunk out_." He said the last bit with special weight to Kame.

Kame simply sat and thought for a moment before responding. "But her taijutsu is insane. She has the potential to become truly strong- she's already exceeded the speed of anyone I've ever seen."

"The same chakra network reconstruction that took away her ninjutsu and genjutsu must have shunted it into her physical abilities. I took a quick look at her physical chart- due to all of the chakra raging around inside of her, she's been naturally focusing it into her muscles to enhance her strength."  _Like the stories of Tsunade_ , Kame remembered. Deihaka seemed almost apologetic. "Honestly, I wouldn't blame you if you want to leave the squad now. There won't be any punishment, and you'll simply be placed on another team. Haku and Miriki would return to the academy for another year."

Kame thought for a moment. If he said yes and got lucky, he might be able to be with Tetsute and Rakuyo! However, as he thought further, he had a sixth sense that attracted him to the mysterious cursed purple-haired girl. As a person who prided himself on making informed, rational decisions, his mind was screaming for him to do it, but his heart told a different story.  _I'm going to regret this_ , he thought as he sighed and voiced his choice. "If not me then wouldn't someone else have to bear the risk? Anyway, judging from the tales I've heard, if the ten-tails escapes then we're all in trouble. Besides, my skills complement hers. I have confidence that she and I... and Miriki," he added as an afterthought, "Can become a strong team."

Deihaka face flashed with an expression Kame couldn't read for an instant before settling into a smile. "That's... good... to hear, Kame. Now, any last questions before I go?" He stood up.

"Actually…" Kame started. "I was wondering… what exactly does her kekkeigenkai do?"

"It's complicated and we don't know much about it, but it is thought to have something to do with stealing chakra." Deihaka turned serious again. "Be sure that you don't breathe a word of either conversations you learned from tonight to anyone."

With that, the jonin took a swig from his bottle and disappeared, leaving Kame with a huge amount of information to think upon. His parents came back in and started to try and speak with him, but he was adamant on not breaking his word and kept quiet about what he and Deihaka had discussed. They relented and went to eat dinner as a family, and then he went upstairs to his room and fell asleep without tinkering at all for the first time in a while.


	3. Genin Arc Ch 3

**Shinobi Union Registry Files (Genin) (Hidden Sand):**

**Date: 50 A4**

**Academy Exam Graduation Data: Haku [Redacted]**

Ninjutsu: D  
 - Notes:  _Despite historically failing ninjutsu assignments, manifested minimum requirements for graduation._

Genjutsu: D  
 - Notes:  _Total failure to cast or dispel genjutsu until the graduation exam._

Taijutsu: A  
 - Notes:  _Highly skilled, speed and strength both exceptional, passable with thrown weapons._

Appearance: _Normal height (5'6") and weight (115 lb), highly athletic build, medium-length messy purple hair. Typically clad in bandages beneath purple kunoichi top & skirt_

Attitude:  _Unable to get along with majority of other students, mostly compliant with teachers but limited in ability to follow instruction. Demonstrates obvious ambition, yet submits to superiority of other students in contrast to it, suggesting underlying motivators._

History: _Arrived at Sand village in 45 A4, showing signs of_ [Redacted] _. After_ [Redacted] _, placed under_ [Redacted] _. Joined the academy in 49 A4, passed an uneventful year as a student before graduating._

( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( )

Kame awoke the next day committed to get off to a great start on missions. His parents had already woken up and gone to report in for their next assignment (as two members of sand border security they were rarely at home). He himself prepared a quick breakfast and left early, determined to check something. He did stop briefly to pick up a huge stack of paper bombs that he'd prepared over the last few months, fitting the pile neatly into a container on his belt. Reaching over, he also made sure to grab his new Sand shinobi headband, tying it neatly around his head and trying not to smirk with pride.

Trekking through silent streets in the morning cold, Kame for some reason found his thoughts drifting towards the Kazekage. Gaara had held the position for an incredibly long time, from a young age he'd reigned until now his near-eighties. Kame had always felt a healthy respect for the man, for overcoming the mistrust of the entire village and eventually even leading it through the Fourth Shinobi War. When the newly-made genin made it to the village center, he walked up to a shopkeeper named Gerin. The old man wasn't the most interesting or sane of people, but he was a reliable source of information on village social affairs. "Hey, Gerin!"

"Well, hello there, young Kame. What brings you here today?" Gerin slowly turned.

"Gerin, I was hoping that you could tell me where Haku lives?"

"Who?"

"Haku. The girl with the purple hair? She arrived here about five years ago." Kame found it hard to believe that he had no clue that she existed- then again, he hadn't known about her until roughly forty-eight hours ago, so he wasn't one to talk.

"Oh yes, her. The feral child… why are you looking for her? It's best to stay away from people like her." Gerin couldn't know about her true jinchuriki nature, so he must simply have a personal feeling about Haku.  _Is this how most of the Sand villagers feel?_

"Why would I want to stay away from her?" Kame tried to keep his voice casual despite rampant curiosity.

"Well... I don't think I should... Let me just say that she's trouble. Why would you want to be near her, anyway?" While talking about Haku, Gerin's voice had entered a tone that was strangely secretive. He wouldn't meet Kame's eyes, either.

"She's my squad member and I'd like to speak with her before we start on missions. Why wouldn't I want to be around her?"

Gerin grunted and looked from side to side before dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "A few years ago she attacked a group of other children and tried to kill them. After that, the village moved her far off onto that northern cliff," he said, pointing towards the area, "probably because she was too dangerous. She's been there ever since, I think. Can't confirm it because my old bones can't take the steep stairs to get up there but I've been told she lives alone up there." the elderly man shrugged and turned back to preparing his store to open.

Kame thanked him and jogged off towards where she should live. As he approached the wall he saw a set of carved steps, probably only two feet out from the wall and very steep. They were clearly used often but not by many people.

He forged onward and upward, making his way up the carved stone until he could see almost to the other end of the Sand.  _Wow, they really were serious about separating her._  He actually started to feel bad for her, alone like this, far away from everyone else. It was like the stories of the Kazekage's childhood- why hadn't people learned from him that if they just gave others a chance, they might be surprised?

_Well, I guess I have..._  he thought as he walked up to a border wall made of sandstone.  _And so far,_ _she's shown her nature to be awkwardly shy and secretive._ _Then again, that still doesn't warrant this much isolation_. He walked up to the wall and had a moment of doubt, given that this didn't look like anyone's house, but then again it was the only structure up on the cliff, so it had to be hers.

He approached the archway to enter and noticed that it was crumbling a little with age. As he passed through the threshold, he realized why- the house was little more than a slowly degenerating ruin. Chunks of rock lay everywhere, remnants of what had probably used to be statues littering a twenty foot square courtyard that led up to a broken, squat little stone structure.

A door was set into the cliff face, so he shrugged and knocked on it, to no response. He tried again, louder, but still there was no response whatsoever. Hesitantly, he pushed against the door, opening it and stepping inside. The house itself was… well, it wasn't messy, but that was because there was almost nothing there. A few books leaned against a refrigerator, sitting next to a cabinet and a sink on the right wall. The rest of the room was dominated by her bed, empty but unmade. A cabinet with the top drawer left open held her skirts. He pulled open the second drawer and then immediately slammed it shut, unable to suppress a violent blush from spreading across his face.  _What was I thinking, digging through her clothing drawers like some kind of pervert?_

_Where is she?_  Kame thought about the available evidence inside the house;  _she must have left to go…_ he walked over and looked into the refrigerator, finding it near-empty.  _Ah, to the market, then!_  He turned around and made his way back down the cliff, jogging over towards the grocer's section of the city. However, he'd barely made it halfway there when he found himself turning a corner to come upon a terrible scene.

Rakuyo, Genji, and Tetsute had encircled Haku, making escape in either direction in the narrow alleyway difficult. Tetsute was actively speaking around a wide smirk, but underneath Kame could see simmering resentment. "Haku, why'd you have to go and cheat on the exam? You and I both know that a retard like you couldn't pass it. What, did you sleep with the instructor so he'd do it for you, or something?"

Haku swallowed and shook her head, eyes distraught. "I… I didn't…"

Rakuyo laughed. "No, no, no, don't try to sell me some story where you learned how to use ninjutsu one day before the test. It's way too obvious how weak you are, can't you see that? Why haven't you dropped out yet?"

Tetsute shook his head. "And now you're dragging Kame down with you. See, the way I figure it is, if you hadn't passed, then Kame might have ended up on our team, and Genji could have been with his friend Miriki. Not that you'd know anything about making friends."

Haku fell silent, her eyes softening to become more despondent than resistant and her cheeks coloring. Tetsute kept going, gleefully now. "So here's what you're gonna do. You're gonna go to Kazekage's offices. You're gonna tell them that you cheated on the test and that you want to go back to the academy. And then, you're gonna quit your stupid little team so Genji, Rakuyo and I can get proper partners for the rest of our time as ninjas. Understood?"

Haku shook her head.

Tetsute narrowed his eyes at her before his eyes widened and a grin split his face. "Oh, I see, if you admit that you cheated now, then you'll never get away with it again. And with your infant-level grasp of chakra control, you'll never pass normally- Ha!" He barked out a laugh. "You'll end up in the academy forever!"

Genji chuckled and Rakuyo contained her giggle to speak as well. "I think we'd honestly be doing the Sand village a favor… Can you imagine, being under attack by enemy ninja and then having some idiot with no ninjutsu or genjutsu show up to help!?" She joined the other two in laughter.

Tetsute's chuckling died down and then he appeared to grow more serious. "Seriously, though, you  _are_  going to go turn yourself in. I don't want to leave Kame stuck having to carry you for his entire ninja career- hell, you're even putting his life at risk just by being on his team!"

Finally, he seemed to lose the facade of happiness, narrowing his eyes and growling out, "Alright, how about we play a little game. If you can break my genjutsu and escape my ninjutsu, I'll leave you alone. Sound good?" She didn't respond, but he obviously hadn't expected her to, continuing his explanation almost immediately: "But if you lose, you quit being a ninja."

Haku finally opened her mouth to respond, only to freeze as Tetsute made a series of signs in her direction, remaining still even as he transitioned to another jutsu, which rippled along the ground and softened it enough to her to slowly start sinking in. His work ostensibly done, the boy went right back to smirking and leaning back with arms crossed, watching his victim sink gradually inch by inch, all while trapped in her mind by whatever genjutsu he'd concocted.

"So, what odds do you give her this time?" He asked Rakuyo.

"Eh," Rakuyo responded with an oddly restrained humor in her expression, "Fifty-fifty."

"So high?"

"Well, no," she replied, allowing a bit more mirth to creep across her face, "Fifty percent chance she gives up and loses, fifty percent chance she keeps fighting and still loses."

Genji, who'd been quiet the whole time, finally spoke up in a cautious tone. "Guys, don't you think this is enough? We're trying to scare her off, not kill her..."

"Kill her?" Tetsute rolled his eyes. "No, I'm just gonna drop her in up to her chest and leave her. Trust me, this isn't the first time."

For some reason, at his mention of prior times doing that, Kame's mind jolted with a sense of something being wrong, but refused to give him any details. In the meantime, Haku's downwards progress suddenly halted with the earth up to her waist, prompting Rakuyo to question "What? Did you decide to go easy on her this time?"

"Not me," Tetsute responded tersely, then immediately flinched and looked up as a few grains of sand tumbled to the ground. Whatever he saw there must have terrified him to his core, because he immediately bolted, Rakuyo and Gunaji following in his wake instantly, leaving a just-now-waking Haku alone in the alley. Kame, driven by curiosity, followed the path of his old friend's gaze and froze much in the same way, looking straight up at the Kazekage, who was standing on a plane of sand that dropped him onto the dusty alley floor.

The elderly man lowered himself to stand beside Haku and, with a wave of a hand, lifted her out of the earth that she was buried in. She stood slowly, almost painfully, and grabbed a dirty bag of groceries with sand and dust spread all around within it.  _Was she still going to eat that?_  Kame realized that she, as an orphan, must live off the village government's charity.  _She probably can't afford to buy new food, even if the stuff she has is filthy._

The Kazekage finally spoke. "Haku, you need to defend yourself from those who treat you like garbage. You don't deserve to be beaten for simply following the path you want."

Haku just flushed slightly and looked away, unwilling to respond, and the Kazekage simply sighed and shook his head. "Go home, Haku. Train more, become strong, but most importantly- realize your own worth. People will..." He trailed off as Haku ran off, taking the other way out of the alley and back towards her home.

The imposing man then turned to look at Kame. "You there… Kame, right? Come out, I can sense your presence." Kame did as he was bid, shaking slightly at the sight of the Kazekage's face bearing nothing but disappointment for him. "You are her teammate. Why would you just watch three other ninja harm your teammate?"

Kame thought a little before responding. "They were my friends, and… well, they made some valid points. Besides, I figured that if she wanted to defend herself, she could, I've seen her-"

His superior silenced him with a new, sharper tone. "Ah, I see, so those two being your friends once makes their actions defensible? 'They had some valid points'? You're simply making excuses." Kame wanted to defend himself, but he could tell the Kazekage wasn't finished. "As for defending herself, well… Were you around, before, when she was eight or nine, a newcomer to the village? No, you wouldn't have been, your parents were insistent on maintaining your village's tradition of sheltering and training the child while they are young… Let me show you, instead."

Before Kame could object, he felt an illusory genjutsu take hold in his mind and he was thrust into a memory, unable to move or do anything other than look and hear and somehow  _feel_ the situation before him.

_Haku was only nine years old when she stumbled into the village on worn legs, wearing a tattered coat several sizes too large for her and filthy from head to toe. Ninja had ushered her to a medical center, where she'd been treated for extreme fatigue and mental trauma. Immediately after her treatments, Gaara had taken her to find out where she'd come from and what had happened._

_The truth came out- she was a survivor, seemingly the sole survivor, of a tragedy that had wiped out her entire clan. The Yorutsume clan had been a rarity, existing completely outside of the village system, training their own and rarely contacting the outside world. They took high-level assassination requests as their only outside source of income. However, for some reason, the entire clan had been wiped from existence, apparently leaving nothing - but now, leaving Haku._

_Gaara had established a way for her to receive enough money to live on from the village, as well as giving her a home in an apartment in the middle of it. She stayed there for a few days before finally wandering out, looking like a new person after being cleaned up and given some rest. Her eyes, having before looked dead and unhappy, now sparkled with curiosity about this new place all around her._

_Eventually, Haku found her way to the yard where most of the other children played. The game of the day was Ninja Master, where children would take turns showing each other whatever small jutsu they'd mastered in a game of one-upping each other. She tried to participate but failed completely, which was alright- many of the other children were there as watchers, to be able to do anything with one's chakra at that age was impressive._

_However, unlike the others, she took it very hard, looking strangely confused and terrified. Further efforts to form anything failed, and now she was the target of attention. One child told her to just stop, as she obviously wasn't strong enough to complete a jutsu; she reacted to that with an actual flinch of terror and appeared to simply try even harder on her failing attempts._

_A few other children laughed, and the talker, edged on by his comrades, shoved her back a few steps and then cast a faulty clone jutsu of his own, managing to create a single clone- admittedly a pathetic, colorless, useless one, but still far beyond anything he should be able to. In response, Haku narrowed her eyes and seemed to try even harder, one last time-_

_But this time, something was wrong. Rather than whatever she'd intended to do with her chakra, instead a black smoke crept from her back and her eyes filled with dark spirals that eventually filled them, turning them into matte darkness. A few other children screamed and ran, and most stayed either out of unwillingness to look scared or out of curiosity, but only one actually moved towards her: the talker from before._

_He challenged her, but was ignored, yet his continued efforts finally drew a reaction from her; she turned and, in a strained voice, asked him what was going on. The next few instants passed by far too quickly for Kame to react in real time, yet in this strange, illusory world, he watched in great detail as Haku's arm shot out to grab the boy around the neck. Even as frightened screams erupted from several onlookers and even from Haku herself, her arm swirled with a purple chakra that pooled and then flowed out, seemingly enveloping the head of her victim and muffling his shouts of defiance. His physical struggles faded almost as quickly as his verbal ones, as his kicks grew weaker and weaker, until he hung fully limp, by which point most of the other children had fled the scene._

_One girl charged in, probably thinking of saving her friend, but was casually batted away by one of Haku's other arms, which was armored by the same purple chakra, and sent the would-be-rescuer flying to land halfway across the play area. She did not get up._

_When all hope seemed lost, a passing Sand ninja in a chunin vest stepped in, first with a wind jutsu that blew in and simply dissipated, and then with his bare hands, yanking the two apart even as he shouted for assistance. More shinobi arrived on the scene, and more, keeping the now-vicious and almost animalistic Haku from attacking anyone else. However, none were capable of knocking her out, so it was a good three minutes of containment that passed before a squad of four mask-wearing Sand Anbu arrived and whisked her away using several complex jutsu._

The memory cut out for a few seconds, but before Kame could give any serious thought to what he'd seen, it shot right back in to another scene:

_The Kazekage was looking at a stack of letters on his desk with an unreadable expression on his face. When finally he opened one, it all became clear- it was a letter addressed to him, from a concerned parent who had heard about his relation to the new child in town who'd attacked and critically injured another kid. The next one had the same topic, and the next, and the next after that, and while some pleaded with him and others demanded instead, all wanted the same thing: for the danger to be kept away from their own children._

_Hours later, the Kazekage was walking a mostly silent Haku into a building on the cliffside at the edge of the town, and explaining to her that she was not to leave it. Her food would be brought to her, and teachers would come to help her with things she needed to learn, but she couldn't ever leave without first being told that it was allowed. When finally she spoke, it was accompanied by her grabbing the bottom of his robe and and begging for him to come see her, eventually earning his promise to visit as often as he could. With those words, she released her grip, and simply watched from the stone dwelling that would be her world for the next few years._

When Kame's senses returned, he was alone in the alleyway, left to ponder his new information. He knew what would happen next, when she was finally allowed out from her isolation to join the ninja academy- Tetsute and Rakuyo would let her have it, because somewhere along the line she'd lost her ability to cast jutsu, making her easy pickings...

_No_ , he realized, thinking about how fast and strong she was.  _If she wanted to hurt them, she probably could, so... why? Why let herself get picked on?_ It only took a second or two for him to piece it together- if she did attack them, there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that the feral child who'd mauled another kid and then been isolated for years and years would suffer no consequences for fighting two of the Sand's golden children, no matter the circumstances. Tetsute and Rakuyo probably didn't even realize that her past had taught her not to fight back, and the thought of them interpreting her submission as cowardice made his blood boil in a way he hadn't ever felt before.

In fact, when he thought of Tetsute and Rakuyo, his mind was incredibly torn- they were bullies, but from what he'd just seen they were doing it out of some kind of misguided desire to help him.  _No, wait_ , he remembered,  _They've been doing this for years, right?_ He wasn't the root cause of them picking on her, he was just one more incentive. The root reasons had to be more complex, and yet...

The more he thought about it, there weren't any acceptable reasons for them to do what they did. Haku was not a weak link, and he wasn't in undue trouble because of her. Thinking of the Kazekage's look of utter disappointment in him, Kame winced.  _I'm not going to be like them_ , he told himself, and reached a decision: He would commit fully to the team. He would give it his all, and try to make up for his previous friends' treatment of Haku.  _She deserves that much, at the very least. In fact, I'll stop looking down on her and Mir-_

Well, maybe he would still look down on Miriki.

 


	4. Genin Arc Ch 4

**Shinobi Union Registry Files (Jonin) (Hidden Sand):**

**Date: 50 A4**

**Jonin-Sensei Assignment Data: Deihaka Surakiri**

Ninjutsu: A  
 - Notes: _Deihaka's mastery of the Magnet Release makes him difficult to match in the field of ninjutsu_

Genjutsu: B  
 - Notes:  _Although not a specialist, his genjutsu is absolutely jonin-level_

Taijutsu: B  
 - Notes:  _Simlar to genjutsu, highly proficient but not specialized_

Appearance:  _Tall height (6'1"), moderate weight (145 lbs), of average build. Short and messy red hair similar to that of the Fourth Kazekage, brown eyes. Typically clad in jonin's vest over casual clothing, wears iron sand condensed into circular plate on back._

 

Attitude:  _Displays constant lack of motivation and affinity for alchohol. Lacks the composure of other ninja of his caliber, yet competes with some of the strongest while on missions, in clear dissonance with his personality._

History: _After a shot career as genin unworthy of note, Deihaka remained a relatively unknown chunin for years, apparently stagnating. However, d_ _espite behavioral issues that kept him from progressing in rank for several years, was recently promoted to jonin by the Kazekage's order. Success rate on missions is evidence that his abilities are up to par, yet despite his apparent skill and noteworthy inheritance, he has stagnated once more, perhaps due to greater unknown problems._

( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( )

Kame ended up arriving right around the same time as Miriki (I.E. "fashionably late") due to the majority of his morning being spent in the Kazekage's vision. When Haku, who'd been the first one to arrive, looked over at him, he couldn't help but feel a twinge of pity that he hoped didn't make to to his face. When she narrowed her eyes, he scrambled mentally to think of some excuse, but was saved by the arrival of Deihaka, through the door rather than the ceiling this time. "Greetings, genin."

Kame bowed. "Greetings, Deihaka-sensei."

Miriki, on the other hand, raised an eyebrow and said, "You're late, Deihaka-sensei."

Deihaka shook his head. "No, I'm not."

Kame's teammate just pointed at the clock on the wall. "You said to be here at eight o' clock."

"Yep," the jonin replied, supremely unimpressed, "But I made no promises about when _I'd_ show up." Miriki seemed to be formulating a retort, but Deihaka kept going to nip it in the bud: "I know how these things work. You got here late, and I'm not waiting around for you to show up."

He talked confidently, but Kame noticed bags under the man's eyes that suggested a different origin for his tardiness. Miriki, though, did not let it go: "Why am I the one who has to wait, huh?"

This drew him disbelieving glances from both Kame and Haku, but Deihaka seemed to take it in stride. "Because I outrank you, kid." Apparently done with the conversation now, he moved on to look over all three genin before sighing. "We're going right into it. Our first mission is today, and… well, let's just say that it's not exactly first mission material." Kame started to ask what that meant, but his leader kept talking. "One of our outposts bordering the Land of Rivers missed their last report, so we're being dispatched to 'see what happened'."

Miriki was the first to reply. "Why did you say that last bit differently?"

Deihaka actually _yawned_ , doing a surprisingly good job so far of killing Kame's excitement about his first mission. "Because this mission is more a way for the Kazekage to remind them to be more dutiful. The Land of Rivers is not a relevant military threat and would never attack one of our outposts; it's far more likely that the idiots stationed there got soft and forgot to send in a report. Now, I'm assuming you all have whatever ninja tools you need?" They all nodded. "Good. We're leaving; try to keep up." Deihaka then, without warning, disappeared out the door, followed by Haku. Miriki and Kame shared a look before following suite, trailing the jonin out of the village and off towards the border.

It only took a few hours, during which Kame had all the free time in the world to have his happy expectations gradually die away, replaced by equal parts dejectedness brought about by Deihaka's jaded analysis and worry about what might be in store for them should said jaded analysis prove wrong. By the end of their hike, though, he was leaning towards the latter feelings, as from the moment their target came into view, Kame could tell something was off. Although he'd never seen the outpost, it seemed a little too flat to the ground, while Deihaka's silence, the pillar of smoke trailing into the sky, and their sudden increase in pace told the rest of the story. As they neared, they slowed down to move more stealthily, until they could clearly see their objective.

The outpost must have once been a sandstone tower, but no more. All that was left was piled rubble scattered about the ground. Small fires burned, contributing to the tower of smoke and dust that marked the location for miles around, yet there was no sign of ninja, neither Sand Shinobi nor enemy. Still, Kame didn't drop his guard.

Deihaka held up a hand, signalling them to stop. "You all need to wait here. I'll see what the situation in there is- if it's all clear, I'll tell you, understood?" They all nodded. He stealthily crept forward, making a few handsigns, and then sank into the sand. A small raised portion was all that betrayed his presence as he made his way forward.

Kame, Miriki, and Haku all sat and stared at each other, awkwardly sitting there in complete silence for seconds stretching into minutes. Eventually, Kame took out some of his firebombs and began folding them into a design he'd come up with, completing most of the folds for a paper airplane, but leaving only the final step undone. In this state, they took up less space and were still flat so they could be stored very easily, but also were but a single quick fold away from being the weaponized airplanes. The pouch had been a gift from his parents- a enlarged version of the standard issue paperbomb container. Seals applied to the pouch itself cut the chakra stored in the paperbombs off from the outside world, which prevented them from all going off when a detonation handsign was issued. Kame had immediately asked for more, and now had three of them attached to his waist at any given point.

One done, he moved on to another, and another, and another, quickly falling into a calming pattern of folding. It was actually kind of reassuring, the repetitive- "Hey Kame! What's Rakuyo like, in person?" Miriki loudly asked, startling Kame out of his focused state.

"What kind of- no no no, don't hit on her, Tetsute will flip his-"

Miriki rolled his eyes. "Just tell me, c'mon... I've only seen her when your little friend group was all angry towards me, what's she like in private?"

_That's right, we always made fun of him back at the academy,_  Kame remembered.  _I should probably feel bad, but..._  the fact that he was having this conversation was a microcosm of the attitude that made Miriki such an insufferable prick.  _The day I feel bad for holding Miriki accountable for his attitude is the day I quit being a Sand shinobi._  "Stop. Trust me, you don't want to mess with her."

Miriki snorted and shook his head, "Hey,  _you_  trust  _me._  I have yet to meet someone who can resist my charm. Besides, you looked fine just a few minutes ago, weren't you all calm and focused?"

Kame rolled his eyes. "Well, not anymore, now that you're loudly revealing our position to the entire area."

His teammate just smirked. "We've got Deihaka-sensei with us, do you really think we could be in any real danger? We're first-timers, this mission can't be that bad, can it?" He wasn't taking this even close to seriously enough.

"Look, Miriki, Deihaka-sensei was clearly expecting this to be a routine checkup where we would just give them a formal warning. That's not the case, and someone actually destroyed a base manned by three full chunin, so please have your guard up." Kame reached back for his paper.

Haku suddenly leaped forward with a raised fist, planting herself in front of Kame with her back to him. Before he could ask what she was thinking, a figure began to rise up from the sands, and he also took out a kunai. The tension broke immediately, though, when color and detail reappeared on the form of Deihaka, who was chuckling.

"You guys have the right instincts, but you can't just wait while a possible enemy rises up from the sand in front of you. Strike first, or don't strike at all." He raised an arm to put it behind his head. "Anyway, I think I've figured out what happened there, but we may as well make a learning experience out of it, so you all take a crack at it."

Kame eased up and turned to walk towards the broken building. When he arrived, several things became immediately clear. First, the destruction wasn't as bad as it had looked; several pieces of furniture were still intact and it was mostly the outer walls and roof that had been destroyed. Second, the blast that had broken the fort had been from inside it, as the walls collapsed outwards. Third, there had been a fight  _after_  the explosion, as several kunai and cuts were made on broken edges of rubble that wouldn't have been exposed before the detonation. Fourth and finally, this fight had happened recently, as the sand hadn't had time to fully settle over and around the broken fortress.

Miriki called out from the main building. "These Sand shinobi weren't leaving in a hurry, huh? This kitchen is empty, and there aren't any belongings left here, either." Kame considered that. All the evidence pointed towards an assault by some unknown enemy, which had blown apart the fortress before attacking the shinobi within it. However, the guards wouldn't have been prepared in that version of events. If they'd won the fight, they would have reported in, meaning they had to have lost. But if they'd lost, then why were their possessions and food gone? The attacking ninja probably wouldn't have wanted to drag along such things.

Kame dug around some more, but it was Haku who uncovered the next piece of the puzzle. She waved from just outside the fort, calling out, "Hey! There are some paperbombs out here, weird ones…"

He hurried over to see what she was talking about. There were indeed paper bombs, and something else- tracks, not quite masked by the shifting dust. The paper bombs, upon closer inspection, seemed to be similar to the concussive ones he'd figured out. In fact, they looked like they were designed to be even more in that direction- they'd hardly inflict any damage or force at all, just release a powerful burst of air.

Thinking it over, he realized the purpose must have been to mask their tracks- the bomb, when detonated, would have destroyed any sand-based evidence, including the time estimate he'd been able to figure out minutes earlier. Why hadn't they detonated it? Furthermore, since the bomb had remained undetonated, there should have been tracks leading  _out_  from the base as well, but there weren't any.

Could the attackers have lost? But the Sand Shinobi were nowhere to be found, so that meant that…  _they must have wiped each other out simultaneously?_  But there were no corpses or anything suggesting dead ninja. In fact, there was no blood at all.

Miriki chimed in again. "There's some marking on the ground here, I think I recognize it… yeah, that's a genjutsu that…" He leaned over, studying it intently, "Would- or, did, I guess- knock its targets out for a little while. It got set off, but that's weird, since these things take like an hour to set up."

Kame started to have a creeping suspicion, but he needed to check one more thing to confirm it. Running back into the central courtyard area, he looked at the loosely scattered ninja tools, and his theory was correct: they were all Hidden Sand issue weapons. There was zero evidence of any Hidden Valley shinobi offense, just a single undetonated paperbomb that would have covered their tracks.

He turned to Deihaka, trying to sound as confident as possible and stating, "This battle was immediately won by the Sand Shinobi, who then fled, taking the Valley Shinobi with them. I don't know why they would do that, but the evidence points to it. They destroyed their own base, then scattered kunai and other implements about to disguise it as a battle."

For a few brief seconds, Deihaka remained expressionless, but then he grinned and nodded. "I came to the same conclusion. Good work, Kame, Haku, Miriki, you all seem to have  _some_ skill, at least. Now, we have to follow this further. If the situation becomes too dangerous, I will tell you to pull out, and you will respect my orders, understood?"

They all nodded. Deihaka then slung his backpack around onto the ground and began digging around in it. "We've covered enough ground today, now we camp for the night. We can start again early tomorrow morning. I'll take first watch, then I'll wake Haku, who should watch for a few hours before waking Kame. Miriki, you're last in the order, you'll get up very early and go after Kame.

"Now, who's hungry?" He reached into his pack and removed a large bottle of sake, which he then began _downing_ without a care in the world, only halting (with the bottle still held up in a drinking position) as he noticed his three confused-looking students. A tiny flicker of something approaching self-consciousness seemed to pass through his expression, and he lowered the bottle with a satisfied breath, next producing a meal pack from his bag and starting to dig in.

"Uh, Deihaka-sensei..." Kame began, but Miriki finished it for him.

"You forgot to tell us to bring food!"

Deihaka lowered his utensils. "You all need me to  _tell_ you to bring food?" Before Miriki could answer the rhetorical question, he kept going, "No. I didn't have to tell you to bring kunai-"

"We were supposed to bring kunai?"

That one got a snicker out of Haku, but Deihaka merely ground his teeth. "Damn it, if I let you starve I'm pretty sure it's breaking some kind of rule, right?"

"Absolutely," Miriki said with an absolute surety that set off alarm bells in Kame's mind.

"Oh!" Deihaka lit up, then turned to rummage around in his bag once again, finally producing three pellets that Kame recognized after a second or two. "Food pills," Deihaka announced triumphantly, "Here you go."

Kame felt the need to interject at this point. "Aren't those supposed to have all kinds of nasty side effects?"

"Nope," Deihaka said, before immediately backtracking. "Well, okay,  _maybe_ , but these are the ration kind, not the 'fight for three days without rest' type."  _Well, that's not so bad_ , Kame thought, reaching to take one- "Probably."  _Okay, not reassuring-_ "Maybe. Actually, how old  _are_ these things?" Deihaka said apparently to himself, scrunching his brow in confusion. "When did I... Nevermind! Eat up," he finished, smiling with the very image of sincere generosity.

Kame slowly retracted his hand.  _Compared to bottom-of-backpack food pills of unknown age and composition_ , he thought,  _No dinner suddenly doesn't sound so bad_. Miriki and Haku both seemed to share the sentiment, because neither of them made any move for the offerings, either. Deihaka's sincere smile morphed to more of a smirk as he sat back and chuckled out, "Alright, alright, fair enough. Get some sleep while you still can."

Each of them unpacked their bedrolls and settled down for the night inside the broken building. After lying down, Kame drifted off to sleep easily and dreamlessly.

( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( )

When Kame woke up, it was from his own natural causes, not from Haku's shaking as he'd expected. Rolling over, he straightened up to see a sky pitch-black, the light of the moon the only thing preventing complete darkness. Right as he was about to try to fall back asleep, he heard movement from behind him and turned to see what it was. His eyes settled on a sitting form that had to be Haku, staring at her arm. He could barely make out a silhouette in the dim light, but she sounded to be breathing heavily. The standoff lasted for almost a minute, before she wrenched the arm back down to her side, standing up and sighing.

Kame barely remembered in time to pretend to be asleep when she stepped over to him and shook him. "Kame, it's your turn, get up." He stood, stretching his sore limbs and yawning, pretending to blink away grogginess.

He swallowed and looked around. "Okay, okay, I got it." Satisfied, Haku turned back to her bedroll and laid down, facing away from him. He sat back against the wall and brought out the paper to fold, half-paying attention to his hands and keeping a watchful eye on the surrounding area.

A few hours went by without anything noticeable happening. When he felt himself starting to slip back to sleep, a quick check of the time told him that he could swap in for Miriki. The other boy was sleeping soundly, and it took a few shakes to get him lucid. "Miriki. Your turn."

"Huh?"

It took everything Kame had to not slap him. "Miriki, you need to take your turn watching the area."

"Five more minutes…" Miriki smirked a little bit half-consciously.

Kame gave up. He lightly slapped his fellow genin across the face and barked, "Get up!" Miriki yelped and sat up quickly, blinking in confusion and pain. Finally his eyes settled on Kame, who could only glare.

"Ugh, fine." Miriki stood up and moved towards a smaller piece of rubble that he could sit on. Kame smiled and slid into his own cloth bedroll, falling asleep in minutes and losing himself once again to a dreamless void.

( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( )

When Kame awoke, he found himself staring at four new shinobi. Scrambling and nearly ripping his bedroll in confusion, he finally managed to dart backwards and draw a kunai. Eyeing the newcomers warily, he took stock of the situation: They were still at the rubble of the Sand outpost. Haku was still asleep, Deihaka was standing off to the side, and Miriki was…

Miriki was talking calmly to them. Kame lightened up a little bit, straightening up and stalking forward to where the conversation was taking place. When he heard what they were talking about, he felt himself blush and mentally swore to get Miriki back later.

"Tell me, are all the girls from the Village Hidden in the Valleys as beautiful as you are? They don't make 'em like you in the Sand…" He grinned at one of their kunoichi, who giggled and blushed, hiding behind her fingers but still staring at him.

Kame fully straightened and looked at the newcomers. It was clearly a team of Hidden Valley genin and their jonin kunoichi leader. Two of the genin looked similar, maybe twins, a boy and girl with the same sandy-brown hair and light blue eyes. The remaining genin, the girl Miriki was hitting on, was a shorter one with blonde hair and brown eyes. All three seemed fairly inexperienced and antsy.

The jonin was another story. Taller than even Deihaka, she had a massive kama strapped to her back, whose haft was as tall as Kame was. Although she wore a normal jonin's vest, underneath was a chainmail coat. Most intimidating was the way she stood, with the easy confidence of someone who knew they could kill everything within twenty meters.

Miriki kept up the flirting. "You know, I sense something between us- a special connection. After I mop up whoever did this, you want to go to dinner?" Again, the girl giggled and blushed. He started to push his advantage, but was interrupted.

Deihaka strode forward towards their jonin. "Enough of this, Miriki."

The woman nodded towards her own charge. "Keikiro." The girl immediately backed away towards the other two Valley Genin, leaving the adults to stand facing each other in the central area. Deihaka first broke the silence. "So, we've given you our interpretation of what happened here."

The other jonin nodded. "Yes, you have."

Miriki called out, "Do you babes think you could give us your names in exchange?"

Deihaka whipped around and stared daggers at the Kosuki boy, but their Valley counterparts seemed to take it well. The jonin pointed first at herself, saying "Senshiko", then at the blonde, "Keikiro", then at the male twin, "Gunaji", and the female, "Sagino". Deihaka replied with all of team 8's names (with a noticeable pause and sigh before Miriki's).

Senshiko frowned as she turned back to Deihaka, lowering her hand from her weapon but not dropping it fully to her side. "Yes, you've given us a report on your interpretation of events. But how am I to know that you didn't just capture my allies and escape with them? All the evidence you've listed supports that theory as well."

"No it doesn't." Kame felt compelled to speak up. "If we were the ones who did it, why would we do all of this? We could have simply pretended that we knew nothing. Destroying an outpost and setting up all this, just to divert blame onto some people who were originally from our village, is just plain foolish."

Gunaji tilted his head a little, staring at him intently, while the others considered his words. Senshiko pondered for a few moments, then grunted. "Fine. However, you  _will_  come along with us as we hunt down these supposed 'traitors'. Keikiro's clan specializes in tracking, and I'm confident that she can lead us to them."

Deihaka nodded. "Agreed, I also-" but he was talked over.

"Not so fast, I wasn't finished. If and when we catch your ex-comrades, they will be given straight to us for interrogation, understood? No tricks, no scapegoats, the ones who did this will be punished." Senshiko's eyes hardened.

Deihaka was far more hesitant to agree to that one, but after visibly wrestling with the decision for a few seconds, he sighed. "Fine. You keep the prisoners."

Senshiko nodded, gesturing at the Keikiro girl to come forward. "We need to give her a moment to pick up the trail." With that, the two teams finally broke their standoff, moving forward to mingle. Sagino, the girl twin, winced a little bit when hopping down from her rock, and Miriki was on her instantly.

"Hey, Sagino, having a little trouble? Let me help you, eh..?"

She looked away from him. "No, just a little sore from the long walk here."

Miriki grinned at that. "Oh? I could have sworn it was from running through my dreams all night…" She smiled at him, and they walked off still talking.

Kame caught a glimpse of the brother and flinched a little. He looked enraged, fists clenched at his sides and eyes locked in frustration on Miriki's back.  _In other words, someone who I can relate with_ , Kame thought, approaching him while waving to get his attention. When he finally ripped his eyes off of Miriki, they lost their anger and he even smiled at Kame. "Hello, Sand Shi- I mean, Kame, wasn't it…?" He awkwardly put a hand behind his head. "So, I guess we're gonna be teaming up, huh?"

Kame nodded. "Yeah. Did you know the patrol that got taken?"

Gunaji shook his head. "No, but… I mean, does it matter? They're shinobi from my village that are in trouble; I have to help them."

Kame held up his hands in attempted pacification. "No, no, I didn't mean it like that… It's just, I wanted to know if they were strong, to get a good judge of what we're going to be up against, you know?"

The other boy nodded. "Yeah, I get it. I… don't know how strong they are. Senshiko-sensei wouldn't tell us much about them, but I get the impression that they weren't all that powerful. Then again, they  _were_  three chunin-rank ninja, so honestly I can't say."

"Then I guess we'll have to just proceed carefully until we're sure what we're dealing with," Kame replied.  _Very carefully_ , he thought. Situations like this were extremely dangerous; he never liked to walk into things not knowing what he was up against.

Right then, a voice rang out from the other side of the temple. "I've got something!" It was Keikiro; she must have found something that she could track. Their eight-person group convened around her. "That genjutsu was pretty distinctive, and I got a reliable trail off of it," she said, before taking off towards the North.

Senshiko followed suite, calling back "Keikiro's tracking follows a chakra trail, but it consumes the chakra in the process- we have to go now, or else we'll lose them!" The others all grabbed what they had to and caught up quickly, so, shrugging, Kame took off after them.


	5. Genin Arc Vol 5

**Shinobi Union Registry (Jonin) (Hidden Valley):**

**Date: 50 A4**

**Jonin-Sensei Assignment Data: Senshiko Nagakura**

Ninjutsu: B  
 - Notes: _Jonin-tier, otherwise unremarkable_

Genjutsu: B  
 - Notes:  _Jonin-tier, otherwise unremarkable_

Taijutsu: A  
 - Notes: _Special use of Kama and addition of clan moonlight techniques earn her A-rank_

Appearance:  _Very tall height (6'3"), moderate weight (180 lb), highly athletic build. Silver hair and eyes typical to clan, usually clad in silver body armor with large Kama strapped to back._

Attitude:  _Absolutely loyal to village, ruthlessly efficient, but also known to go beyond bounds of missions in order to "deliver justice", possibly a trend within clan._

History: _Heir to Nagakura clan, mastered their techniques at a young enough age to be considered a genius. Achieved rank genin at age 10 and rank jonin at age 17, proves her combat skills on every mission she has been sent upon._

( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( )

It was midday when the hunters finally stopped traveling. As they stopped to rest in a heavily wooded area, Kame wondered why- had they reached their targets, or had the trail gone cold? As the genin caught their breath, he noticed the two jonin split off to have a private conversation. His first instinct was to listen in, but then he remembered what had happened the last time he'd tried that.

Instead, he decided to approach Gunaji, who was sitting off to the side and beating on a stone with another implement. Trying to mask his confusion at what the other boy was doing, he called out, "Hey, Gunaji." The Valley genin nodded at him. "What… are you doing?"

Gunaji looked down at the rocks in his hand, then back at Kame. Suddenly, realization seemed to dawn over his face and he smiled, raising both hands to show their contents. "My clan, the Kokuseki, use a specific kind of earth style jutsu. It… well, I don't want to give you all of my secrets, but it gets significantly stronger with sharper rocks.

"I recently found out that this specific kind of stone will shatter like glass when broken, which allows it to achieve levels of sharpness that cannot be achieved otherwise." Kame looked at the raised hands. Inside of the right one was a black, glassy rock with chips missing, and in the other one was actually a battered piece of steel that might have once been a kunai.

Kame smiled.  _He's an inventor, too_ , he thought, happy to have found a kindred spirit. He decided to sit down beside Gunaji, pulling out a piece of practice paper and trying different folds to see if anything would occur to him. They sat in calm silence for a good four or five minutes, until the jonin finished their discussion and called for the attention of their charges.

"Okay, you all, listen up. We are now going forward into what could very well be enemy territory," Deihaka said. "Therefore, me and Senshiko will make up the front, with Kame and Gunaji bringing up the rear. The rest of you will keep within that formation and follow our orders. Remember, you may be genin but this is the real world, and any mistake could cost you your lives."

Senshiko detached her kama from her back and turned towards the direction they'd been traveling before the stop. "We're going." Kame rose up, pocketing the paper and trying to clear his mind in preparation for what lay ahead. He watched as the other students each rose and made their way into the formation described by their leaders.

Then they started, and Kame had to focus completely on what surrounded him. The trees of the forest were dense, and he had to carefully scan every inch for movement to be sure that nobody was hiding in them. It was a difficult task, and not for the first time in his life he wished he had some sort of visual kekkeigenkai to aid him.

Suddenly, their group stopped. Kame allowed his eyes to drift forward to what lay before them, which was a cavern, fortified with a huge iron door that covered it completely. The jonin were stopped in front of it, and he saw Deihaka reach forward, presumably to attempt the magnet release. However, nothing happened.

Kame decided to step forward, reaching into his pocket.  _As long as they're made of steel_ , he thought,  _I should be able to break them with a controlled blast_ -

Then he heard a kunai whistle past his head. The next few seconds were a blur of motion as their group split, turning to face the enemy behind them, while Kame silently cursed himself for letting himself get distracted micro-managing the jonins' tasks. A loud hiss cut through the noise, and he looked down in horror to see that the thrown knife had a paperbomb attached to it. He tried to dodge backward but knew in the back of his head that he wouldn't make it, when suddenly an impact of iron sand against his chest threw him backwards barely a split second before he felt the second impact of the blast.

Instead of crashing against the ground, he met with a softer crash against a human- Haku had caught him. She then dumped him on the ground and darted to the side, leaving him with a statement that shook him from his stupor- "Kame, pull your weight!"

 _She's right_ , he thought as he straightened up and got back on his feet.  _I was picked to make up the rear guard because of my talent, and now I'm just being useless._  He refocused on the situation, taking everything he could. There were at least two enemy ninja in the treeline surrounding the clearing they were in. The door remained sealed, but everyone besides Deihaka had bolted from the exposed open.

A cry sounded out from the treeline, and then a large patch of leaves exploded to reveal a ninja dressed all in green, impaled on the end of Senshiko's kama. The polished steel blade of her weapon was now glowing with pure white light. She withdrew the weapon in one smooth movement, dumping the corpse of the green-clad ninja onto the ground, then leaped down beside it and decapitated it to make sure the job was done.

Meanwhile, Haku was dodging a few shuriken coming from a larger tree, from which also flew a barrage of projectiles directed at Deihaka. Deihaka made a shield from his iron sand, blocking the attack, and then something strange happened- the projectiles rose up from the ground to fly straight back where they'd emerged, although no cry of pain heralded a successful hit.

Miriki, Gunaji, Keikiro, and Sagino all held positions around the treeline, scanning for an opening but focusing mostly on defense and dodging. Kame took in a deep breath before forming his plan. He then yanked a folded piece of paper from a pouch, finished a final fold, and in one smooth motion flung it towards Haku and Deihaka's assailants' tree. Without even pausing, he threw two more at the ground underneath it and readied two kunai knives.

The first plane he detonated immediately as it entered the tree, and it exploded in a spray of napalm. The wood quickly caught fire, and right on queue, two forms fell from the branches, right onto his settled second set of airplanes. Another handsign detonated those, forcing the two enemy ninja to dodge upwards into the air, and then he unleashed his finisher, flinging both kunai at their targets. In the air, mid-dodge, they'd never be able to avoid the sharp blades.

However, he realized his miscalculation when the kunai met only wood.  _A substitution jutsu!_ Kame was annoyed at failing to plan for one of the basic three jutsu.  _Of course they would know it; how the hell could I expect them not to!?_  A yell sounded out from just over his head, and then a green ninja flew by and landed painfully on the forest floor, followed immediately by Haku. She slammed an arm into the man's head, hard enough to make Kame wince, and then moved on as he collapsed unconscious.

That was most likely one of the two from earlier. That left one more that he knew of, although… Gunaji and Keikiro both deflected shuriken, confirming his suspicions that there were indeed more ninja who'd simply remained hidden. His total of known ninja was reduced back down to one, however, when a shrieking figure launched out of a tree and out into the open air. Before they could fall, Senshiko leaped out and swung her kama around in an arc that glowed with silver. "Moonlight Strike!" The elder kunoichi landed easily, followed by the two halves of her target.

Kame realized that, despite the initial ambush, his allies had the situation under control. He turned his thoughts back to the gate holding them out of the base and most likely covering their enemies' retreat.  _If the magnet release didn't work, then there's probably some sort of chakra nullification effect in play_ , he thought, considering his options carefully. Still, that shouldn't prevent him from using paperbombs, as by the time they exploded all of the chakra had been converted into pure energy.

He reached into his pack as he darted towards the iron doors, pulling out some normal paper bombs (the sort he used to make the planes was better for folding than attaching). He plastered an area in the middle of the left gate, making sure to aim the blasts inward and shaping them so that they would form a controlled zone of destruction. After pressing twelve of them onto the door, forming a rough archway, he backed away.

After a cursory check to ensure that no allies were too close, he signed, and a massive boom accompanied by a deceptively small burst of smoke shook the clearing. For the briefest moment, there was pause in the combat as the participants reoriented themselves to the new situation, and then Senshiko's kama cut a branch and dropped a green-clad shinobi directly in front of her on the ground.

After she gutted that one, Kame relaxed slightly- every enemy shinobi who'd attacked was accounted for. Haku had gotten one, Senshiko had gotten three, and the remaining one had been taken out by Deihaka. The new hole in their gate was jagged but wide enough for them to get in through, although through it Kame could only see darkness. Entering through that with no clue what was behind it was a terrible plan- unfortunately, he didn't have a better one.

Senshiko nodded at him, which gave him a little surge of pride- to be recognized, no, to be  _praised_  by a jonin-level ninja was very satisfyng. She raised her kama, shouting "Radiant Moonlight Jutsu!" and the weapon's crescent-moon blade instantly began to shine too brightly to even look at. Light in hand, she then charged directly through the hole and into the enemy stronghold. When no sound but her echoing footsteps came from the entrance, Sagino and Gunaji both ran in. Kame started towards it as well, seeing Haku doing the same.

Deihaka stopped Keikiro and Miriki before they could enter. "You two are to stay out here and watch for any other enemies. If you're attacked from the trees and can't win the fight, enter the base and find us. If enemies come from within the base or we don't come back out within an hour, you will have to go back to the Hidden Sand and give a full report, understood?" They both nodded, eyes flickering to each other briefly.  _Why those two?_  Kame thought.  _If they're left together they'll pay more attention to each other than to their jobs._

However, he couldn't very well just challenge Deihaka's orders right then and there, so he just shrugged and entered the base behind Haku. Inside, by the dim light from the hole and the much brighter light from Senshiko's sword, he was able to make out some detail. The inside of the cave was rough, unhewn stone, with only the floor being flattened somewhat. Crates of ninja tools and other items lined the walls, stacked haphazardly and some even spilling out onto the ground.

More ominous were the occasional bloodstains splattered around the place. As they continued at a rapid pace down the long passage and deeper into the cave, there started to be less crates and more normal items and possessions. Clearly someone here had cleared out in a hurry, leaving behind half-eaten food and still-burning torches. After what felt like a kilometer of passage, they finally reached a wide-open space that seemed like an arena, a large circular area with gateways in the walls. Senshiko motioned for them to stop, then pointed at herself and at the open forward path.  _I'll go ahead alone_.

Kame dropped back and calmed his nerves. He paid close attention to what happened next- Senshiko was walking into a probable trap in order to clear the way for their group. As she strode forward in a defensive stance, loud clacking sounded out from somewhere he couldn't see, and then everything happened incredibly quickly. A massive form charged at her, body moving so fast it was almost a blur, while another one dropped from above. She yelled out something indiscernible, and a flash of light so bright it felt searing to his exposed skin blasted out from her.

As he blinked the bright lights from his eyes and tried to refocus on the events unfolding within the arena, the situation gradually grew clear to him. Deihaka, who had somehow avoided being blinded by the initial blast, was now standing inside the arena beside Senshiko. Arrayed around them were three… demons was the only word he could think of. Humanoid in shape, but with grossly mutated bodies, they must have emerged from the arena gates.

One, the massive one, was at least three meters tall and thicker than any person. It had dark grey skin, the horns of a bull, and huge hooves instead of feet. Another hovered overhead, thin beyond malnourishment, with sticklike limbs and compound eyes covering too much of its face. Twin wings beat faster than he could track with his eyes to keep it in the air. The third one was a normal height, but with thick limbs and dark reddish fur covering its entire body. Huge claws poked out of the ends of its arms, and eyes glowed red from beneath the fur on its head.

Despite their monstrous forms, there were still torn rags that might have once been clothes on them. Their eyes twitched around, taking in the situation with more than animal intelligence.  _What the hell are these things?_  Kame spared a glance around and saw the broken gates and even more bloodstains littering the strangely arena-like area.  _What is this place?_

He noticed Haku striding forward and decided to follow along, keeping his eyes on the the three monsters in case they tried another attack. For long moments all the ninja in the room remained still, and then the short beast broke it by diving down into the ground with some sort of tunneling jutsu. Senshiko cried out and charged forward, swinging the kama forward at the horned foe, while Deihaka released a barrage of iron sand projectiles at the flying one.

Kame drew a kunai and quietly planned as best as he could. With more allies than enemies locked in close quarters combat like this, paperbombs would be a poor idea. His best bet was probably to wait for openings to get in some projectile weapons-

A split-second instinct was all that warned him to dodge forwards, but it was barely enough to save his life. As he rolled and came back up into a crouch, he saw that behind him stood three chunin in the Hidden Sand's uniform. Deihaka, upon seeing them, yelled at him: "Get back, now! Kame, do not fight them, leave them to me!"

Kame obeyed, backing up and remaining defensive. One of them, probably the leader, spoke in a loud voice to someone that Kame couldn't see, up above them. "Sankuryu, you idiot, they  _all_  got through your outer defenses?" He pulled out a kunai. "Oh well, looks like I get to deal with them all myself. Lucky me…" He trailed off, glancing around the battlefield at the combat still happening. "Wow, you guys brought two whole teams? Two S-rank jonin? I feel real special, guys!"

Kame swallowed. Despite the man's obnoxious talking, the situation was still deadly serious. With three more enemies to deal with, their numbers were now even- but three chunin and three monsters probably had the advantage over four genin and two jonin.  _Can we really hope to win and all survive this?_  The man's face brightened up a bit as he apparently realized something."Hey, wait a second… two S-rank jonin? That makes us an S-rank mission!"

 _What is he talking about? Is he seriously thinking about that in the middle of a battle!?_ While Kame was still processing those words, a shuriken whipped forward from the chunin's hand. Kame barely had time to dodge it, but while dodging, one of the other two ninja was already upon him, kunai coming straight at his neck.  _Shit!_  Kame thought,  _I don't have time to dodge it!_  He had to use his last line of defense, then. Making a sign in his right hand, he detonated the Windbomb hidden underneath his genin vest.

To say it felt like he'd been kicked in the chest would be an understatement. In reality, the paperbomb went off and he simply went flying as though he'd been shot from a cannon. The other ninja was flung back, not as hard, and slammed into the far wall, while Kame hit the ground,  _very_ hard, and rolled to a stop. He tried to get up, but there was overwhelming pain from his chest- he might have broken a rib.

 _At least I'm still alive_ , he thought, grimacing and forcing himself to his feet. He was now on the other side of the fight from the sand chunin, watching as Haku dodged their attacks and gradually managed to get closer and closer to them in between evasive moves. However, he saw something on the earth in front of her and managed to yell out "Haku! Your feet!" before his voice disappeared into pained coughing. He'd definitely broken a rib.

She looked down and at the last second seemed to understand his warning. When the mole creature punched up through the ground and swiped at her, she was prepared for it and dodged under its claw, then grabbed it by the arm and flipped it over her shoulder towards the gathered Sand Chunin. They managed to dodge the monster, but then one yelled in pain as a black projectile punched into his leg. Kame turned to see Gunaji throwing two more of his black stones into the air, then appearing to concentrate as they flew forwards towards the already-injured target.

Kame formulated a quick plan based on how the three Sand chunin were grouping up constantly. Although it gave them strength as a united team, it also gave him an idea, but he'd have to swallow his pain to get it done. As he darted off, rounding the arena perimeter on his way back to the archway that they'd entered through, his focus drifted back towards the fight. Sagino was using some sort of jutsu that apparently hardened her skin, as she appeared to made completely of stone as she ran forwards to engage the chunin. Gunaji was keeping up his assault with the sharpened rocks, preventing them from focusing on his sister. Deihaka was trading even with the flying buglike demon, dodging and having his attacks dodged equally.

Senshiko was a different story, though, as her kama was making short work of the horned creature. Large it may have been, but her strikes were chipping away at its defense and it didn't even have any real openings to attack. The mole-like digging creature punched out of the earth beside the kunoichi, but before it could land a hit Haku came flying from a few meters away and pounded a fist into it hard enough to launch it a good ten meters and crunch it into the far wall.

Then Kame was at his destination, and he walked back into the passageway (carefully trying not to put any more stress on his shattered rib) until he found what he was looking for.  _There it is,_  he thought as he charged over to stop beside a shattered crate lid. Lifting it up, he reached into his pouch and began plastering it with paperbombs. Once he'd covered it well enough, he turned back towards the fight.

The situation had worsened in his absence. Deihaka and Senshiko's respective opponents had swapped, leaving Senshiko outranged and Deihaka outmuscled. The mole was being more careful with its emergences, and actually caught Haku with a sweeping strike the next time it popped up. Kame knew that if he was going to act, he had to act now. With a yell, he ran straight at the grouped chunin, defiantly pulling a kunai and sprinting at them. Their leader turned to face him and Kame could actually see the man's thought process through his expressions: ' _What the- oh, it's one of the genin, thinking they can charge in like a hero. What an idiot_.'

Kame actually made it almost directly to them before one of them flicked a shuriken towards his face. With a smirk, he waited until it was almost upon him, reaching out to the piece of wood with his chakra and…

"Substitution!" he swapped places with it, now standing outside the arena's entrance. One more handsign remotely activated all of the paperbombs on the wood, and a few anguished cries of pain told him all he needed to know about what had happened. Limping now due to his pain, he saw that they'd all three been taken out in the blast, but two of them (impressively) had survived it. When the leader shifted and groaned, Kame stumbled back a step-  _How is he still conscious!?_  The man started to sit up, but then another figure appeared behind him, a taller ninja in dark green robes and wearing a thick green rope tied around his waist. The newcomer swung a hand around and, in a single smooth movement, decapitated their own ally.

Kame froze in horror as the figure then went and did the same to the other two before straightening up and yawning, turning to face the Valley and Sand forces. Their face was hidden by a mask of a snarling Oni demon, but their voice was in line with neither their appearance nor their actions. In a calm, almost soothing tone, the man spoke out across the battle, his words somehow penetrating through everything else. "I'm going to ask you once to lie down and die. I'm not a fan of lord Orochimaru's penchant for turning everything into an experiment, so I'm offering you one chance for a clean death."

Gunaji scoffed. "You really expect us to just roll over and die? Plus, thanks for telling us who you're working for without even being interrogated."

The man sighed. "So, experimentation it is, then. Taking people alive is such a burden… but I bear it for you happily, my lord Orochimaru." He started to walk forward, hands still empty and without any visible defense. "As for you knowing who was in charge of this place, well," he chuckled. "All of you will either die right here or during experimentation in the coming months."

Deihaka stepped forward from their group. "Back off, all genin. This is one of Orochimaru's strongest known disciples, Sankuryu the Unstoppable. He's far above your skills." He turned and Kame could immediately tell from his expression how deadly serious this situation was. "Deal with the mutated ones, and leave this man to me and Senshiko."

Sankuryu laughed a little bit. "Do you really think you can save them? You never should have brought those children into this place, Deihaka of the Iron Sand. And you…" He looked at Senshiko. "I know your abilities all too well, Senshiko of the Hidden Valley."

In response, she just leveled her kama at him, striding forward to stand beside Deihaka. Then Kame had to rip his eyes from the standoff to pay attention to his own fight as the ground beside him shuddered. He leaped to the side, but made sure to drop a paperbomb on the ground where he'd stood. When the mole creature predictably appeared, he detonated it, drawing a screech of rage from the creature. By the time that the smoke cleared, Gunaji was already there, all three of his rock shards punching forward into the demon's flesh.

Haku yelled from across the room, "Can someone take this flying thing on?"  _Crap, that's right, she doesn't really have any ranged options_ , Kame thought as he turned his attention to it. He tossed a few kunai to keep it dodging while he made his way across the room, also taking a moment to take stock of the other fights. Deihaka and Senshiko appeared to be more than holding their own against Sankuryu, although they did seem to be dodging rather than blocking all of his strikes.

He rapidly threw together two paper airplanes and launched them forward. The fly creature must have had some sixth sense, because it dodged them as though it knew what they did. Thankfully, he still had a good fifty more sheets of paper bombs. He didn't let up on his barrage, allowing Haku to move over and attack the bull with Sagino.

Five more airplanes were all dodged with ease, and the creature was actually managing to close the distance between them. Eyeing its disproportionately long fingers and claws, Kame decided that it would be a very poor idea to allow it into melee range. When he threw another airplane, he noticed it start its dodge immediately when he released the plane, and smiled. His trap was complete.

Kame rapidly drew another piece of paper, but this time  _unfolded_ two steps and replaced them with new creases. He backed away a few painful steps, took aim, and launched it when his enemy was only about five meters away from him. As expected, comfortable in the pattern of his previous attacks, the fly buzzed upward to dodge over it. However, this plane was different- instead of flying straight like the others, he'd folded it to angle up.

The fly creature had only half a second to realize its mistake before he detonated the plane and blasted its body halfway across the cavern. It didn't make any attempt to get up, so Kame looked over at the other fights. Haku and Sagino had managed to beat down the bull, and in a final devastating flurry took it down for good. The mole, which had never recovered from his trap earlier, fell to Gunaji's focused piercing attacks, leaving Sankuryu as the only enemy alive.

Then Kame made the mistake of relaxing and stopping to reduce stress on his injured rib, and once again his laziness proved costly. Deihaka and Senshiko must have made a mistake, because suddenly Sankuryu was upon him, one flattened hand swinging around in an arc. Deihaka yelled "Dodge!" desperately, and Kame did all he  _could_  do, letting himself fall backwards and downwards.

As a result, the attack that might have opened his stomach merely grazed his chest- but something was wrong. Where his attacker's fingertips had merely brushed, the vest and shirt were torn open, along with a large gash in his chest. His rib screaming, he felt himself start to pass out, fighting against it with all he had. The best he could do was remain conscious, however, and he toppled to the stone cavern floor.

Sankuryu's other arm arced downwards towards him, and he knew that this time he wouldn't be able to dodge. He also knew that no one was nearby enough to help him-  _Is this really how it ends? My first mission as a genin!?_  He closed his eyes, uselessly raising an arm in defense…

Then there was a flash, and he opened his eyes to see Haku standing over him, crackling with electricity and with a fist still raised from her punch. Sankuryu had been flung backwards by her attack, and landed without taking his eyes off of them. Haku crackled a little more, and then flashed straight over to him and landed another strike, this time directly to the face, which staggered him backwards. Sankuryu narrowed his eyes and then sighed.

"You're not what you appear to be, are you? I'll have to speak to master Orochimaru about this. Don't worry, though, I'll find you all again soon enough." His hands quickly ran through a set of signs and then he disappeared into thin air, leaving the gathered Valley and Sand ninja alone in the stronghold.  _Huh, we actually did… it…_ Kame thought, just as the pain from his chest and rib grew too strong and he blacked out completely.


	6. Genin Arc Ch 6

**Shinobi Union Registry (Genin) (Hidden Valley):**

**Date: 50 A4**

**Academy Graduation Exam Data: Keikiro Torakku**  

Ninjutsu: B  
 - Notes:  _Lightning change of nature, excellent chakra control, clan tracking jutsu_

Genjutsu: B  
 - Notes:  _Highly perceptive, able to spot and release genjutsu with ease, capable of most minor genjutsu as well_

Taijutsu: C  
 - Notes:  _Passable skills, but physical limitations put her at a disadvantage_

Appearance:  _Short height (4'6"), low weight (85 lb), thin build. Light blonde hair and brown eyes, typically wearing brightly colored clothing (preference for pink)._

Attitude:  _Apparently enthusiastic about becoming a ninja, but also seemingly averse to violence. Amicable relations with all classmates, but on friendly terms with most. Obedient to teachers, followed orders well, but doesn't go above and beyond unless pressured to._

History:  _Rumored to have joined academy only due to influence from clan, but behavior doesn't indicate unwillingness to serve as a ninja. Graduated near top of class in everything except taijutsu._

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Kame blinked his way back into the waking world, wincing a little as sunlight blazed into his eyes. When he tried to raise an arm to shield himself from it, a bolt of pain shot through him and then he remembered- he'd been hurt in that last fight. Looking down, he saw that someone had bandaged up his chest. His attention was taken away from his own misery, though, by another realization- Haku had saved his life, and had used some sort of lightning style technique.

On that note, Miriki was suddenly crouching in front of him. "Hey, sleeping beauty, what's up? You feeling any better?" Kame gritted his teeth and slowly tilted his head forward. "I hear you broke the ol' rib, huh?" Miriki patted Kame's chest and he gasped in pain.

"Get away from me," Kame hissed.

"Hey, hey, no need to be all hostile," Miriki chuckled, "just because you got taken out on your first mission. I'm sure that you'll do better next time. Not everyone can get out without a scratch like yours truly."

"You didn't even- Agh!" Kame flinched again. So yelling  _was_  out of the question. "-go into the base, you moron."

"I avoided a dangerous situation and let the grunts deal with it. That's called tactical intelligence, my friend." Miriki's smirk spread even wider, and Kame was very close to doing something he'd regret. However, Gunaji walked over and took Miriki by the shoulder, winking at Kame before dragging off his annoying teammate. Kame made a mental note to thank him for that later.

Kame, with a bit of trial and error, managed to get up without hurting himself. If he stood favoring his left side, then the right rib's pain was kept to a minimum.  _I have no clue what they did to that cut on my chest,_  he thought,  _but it feels like it's barely there now._  A cursory inspection of his surrounding revealed that they were back in the sheltered area where they'd stopped pre-attack, and only Gunaji, Miriki, Keikiro, and Sagino were in sight.

That changed as Deihaka, Senshiko, and Haku walked around a large stone into view, with Haku looking more happy than he'd seen her. When she saw him, her expression changed to worry and she jogged over to him. "Are you… doing okay? You're standing now."

Kame nodded. "Yeah. Umm…" He trailed off awkwardly, not quite sure how to say what he wanted to. "Haku, I… thank you. For saving my life. I don't know how I can repay you for that." He felt himself start to blush slightly and looked away from her, desperate to change the subject. "Anyway, I saw you use some sort of lightning jutsu back there? What was that about?"

Haku's face went from strangely almost sad to excited in an instant. "I got a lightning change of nature! You know how my chakra network is all… well…" She quieted a little bit. "Well, when I focused super hard on speed and getting over there instantly, it somehow opened up a lightning release inside of me. Because of the chakra network, it… well, I guess it just gives me more speed and makes my attacks shock people."

Kame's head spun.  _Does this mean she'll be able to use other changes of nature? This is almost like a stance-based taijutsu technique, where she can swap between elements to give her different strengths._  He shook himself out of his thoughts to smile back at her. "That's great, Haku. I mean, it saved my life, so I'm kind of biased, but still…"

She laughed a little bit at that, but their conversation was cut off when Deihaka approached them. "Kame, you're up, good. Tell me, can you travel?"

"Yes." He could probably manage a decent pace, even with the injuries, if he made sure not to put weight on them.

"Good. We're returning to the Hidden Sand today; the mission is over."

Kame was still confused about something. "But wait, Deihaka-sensei. What about the missing Valley ninja? Weren't we also supposed to find them?"

Sagino walked up and answered. "We did. While you were downed, we went through the place. It looks like some sort of preliminary laboratory of Orochimaru's, where they tested and prepped people before they were sent to another facility, although we got nothing on the location of that one. There was also a logbook, which told us everything we needed to know.

"Apparently they'd started offering a reward for kidnapped ninja and civilians, which  _your_ Sand chunin were providing for them regularly. The whole reason our patrol was captured in the first place was the string of suspicious disappearances in our villages near the border. Then, they upped the ante and offered the traitors high-level positions in their organization in exchange for three chunin-level Hidden Valley ninja.

"You know what happened next. Our people went in to investigate them, got captured, and were taken to this place. However, what nobody knew was that they were tested on almost immediately. Those three beasts that we fought in there? Those were once Valley shinobi." Sagino sounded bitter, and Kame could only hope that she would hold it against Orochimaru, rather than the Hidden Sand.

Deihaka frowned and chimed in. "It's troubling to see three ninja weaponized and made loyal so quickly. Orochimaru… well, he's always had a way with drawing strong but troubled ninja to his cause, but it's usually through corruption or manipulation over months rather than jutsu."

"Like Sasuke." Naruto Uzumaki, Gaara, and Sasuke Uchiha were the three ninja that Kame had researched most thoroughly. In his opinion, they were the three strongest ninja of the modern age, as well as excellent examples of overcoming hardship to achieve greatness. "Orochimaru, is he truly so much of a threat? I haven't heard much about him relevant to our village…"

Deihaka chuckled a little bit. "That's because they don't want to tell you the miserable truth. Orochimaru singlehandedly defeated the third Kazekage in mortal combat, then assumed his role and led us into a disastrous war with the Hidden Leaf. No one speaks of it because it's too embarrassing to admit that one man nearly brought two of the Five Great villages to their knees, but it's the truth."

Kame grew annoyed. A pet peeve of his was when people would rather cover up their errors than learn from them.  _Turns out the entire village is like that,_ he thought. Before their conversation could go any further, Senshiko yelled, "Valley genin! Pack up, we're leaving!"

Deihaka shrugged and waited for Miriki to come over to their little group. "Okay, that's all three of you. We're heading back to the Sand now, but first I want to grade you."

"What?" Miriki and him said it at the same time, but while Miriki's tone was bemused, Kame's was all horror. Would this performance go down on his record as a ninja forever?

Deihaka grinned- Kame's chagrin must have been written all over his face. "No, no, this isn't anything formal, I just want to tell you how you did." Turning towards Miriki, he said, "Miriki: you did exactly what you were assigned to do without any error whatsoever. A-Plus." Then towards Haku, "You also held your own impressively well in there. A few of the hits you took could have been avoided with more careful fighting, though… I give you an A." Finally, he looked at Kame. "You made several errors both in and out of the fortress, two of which probably would have killed you without intervention from teammates. You're going to have to get a lot more careful, and stop overreaching mentally. C-Minus."

Kame really,  _really_  wanted to scream at him about how he'd helped a thousand times more than Miriki had, and had the hardest jobs, but instead he swallowed his pride and anger, simply nodding. "Yes, Deihaka-sensei." The jonin smiled and then pointed towards the west.

"Good, then let's head out."

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It took them longer to return, mostly because of Kame's weakened state, but eventually they made it. The sun was setting, and after they all made their goodbyes Kame made a beeline straight for his house. His parents had already left for their next round on the border, leaving him alone (but also leaving him a plate of sushi in their refrigerator). After chowing down on dinner, he started to head off to bed but before he could there was a knock at the door.

Opening it, Kame found himself staring at two Sand ANBU members, both standing seemingly casually but also noticeably holding weapons at their sides. They appeared to take stock of him, then the one on the right spoke in a harsh, authoritative voice: "Kame Hakiara. You are to accompany us to the detention center, we need to ask you a few questions."

Kame subconsciously backed away a few steps, but stopped when the speaker raised their knife. "Any attempt to flee or fight will be treated as capital treason. If you have any protests, you can voice them once we have taken you in." He had little choice but to follow them, feeling incredibly exposed and embarrassed in his Shukaku the Onetail pajamas. As he left, he realized that he had none of his weapons or ninja tools with him.

The detention center was set into the cliffs surrounding the city, deep inside through several tunnels dimly lit by flickering fluorescent ceiling lights. Finally they reached a security gate of some sort, where a non-ANBU security officer disabled a chakra wall to allow them deeper. Once through the door, they immediately took him to into a holding cell and gestured for him to sit down on a metal chair in front of a table.

A few minutes of painful silence passed before a newcomer came in to sit across from him, shuffling through a few files before dropping them onto the table and looking straight at him. It was a woman, probably middle-aged, but with a hard face and piercing eyes. She wore the grey-collared vest of a Hidden Sand interior defense shinobi- was this an interrogation?  _Do they think I'm a spy!?_ His thoughts raced, theories multiplying by the second.  _Is this because of when I listened in on the Kazekage? Maybe they're curious about the outpost mission? Deihaka-sensei told me I was off the hook for spying on that conversation; did something change!? What if-_

"Suspect! Hello?" A crabby voice yanked him from his mind and back into the cold room. The woman was still staring at him. "If you don't respond, I'm going to have to make you respond."  _Oh, shit-_ she'd been talking to him!

"Yes, yes, I'm sorry. What is it you want to know? I'm happy to comply with your investigation!" Kame utterly failed to hide his nervousness, his voice even cracking slightly at the very end of his sputtered response.

The woman exchanged a glance with one of the ANBU before looking back at him. "Ugh, it's a squealer. Stop whimpering, as long as you answer everything honestly you won't be tortured… probably." She then made a few handsigns, still talking. "Due to several recent and not-so-recent events, you are under suspicion as a spy. This genjutsu will force you to answer honestly to all of my questions. If you make any attempt to release it, we will resort to good old-fashioned torture." She looked way too interested in that outcome.

Kame swallowed and tried his best to not stutter in his answer. "I'll do it- I mean, I'm-" Something strange happened- before he could say 'I'm happy to do it', his throat closed up. The woman must have finished her genjutsu already, preventing him from lying about how much he  _didn't_  want to be there.

She shrugged, disappointedly saying, "Fine, if you want to be no fun at all and do it willingly, go right ahead. Now: Have you ever made contact with shinobi of another village and not reported it?"

Kame gritted his teeth, the Valley ninja he'd just met fit that description. "Yes, but-"

He was cut off. "Have you ever acted against the rules of the Hidden Sand village?"

"Grk-"  _What? When have I ever tried to sabotage the Hidden Sand?_ Then realization dawned over him-  _The academy graduation! I cheated to help Haku…_ "Yes, I have."

The woman narrowed her eyes. "Have you ever gathered Hidden Sand information that you were not supposed to have access to?"

"I… Yes." When he'd eavesdropped on Gaara's conversation.

The woman now seemed highly suspicious. "Did you share this information with  _anyone_  not affiliated with the Hidden Sand?"

Kame sighed in relief. "No, I didn't."

"Have you ever performed any actions with the intent of negatively affecting the Village Hidden in the Sand?"

"No."

She grunted, reading something off of the paper underneath her, before asking him another question. "Have you ever, through action or inaction, brought or allowed harm to one of your comrades when you could have prevented it?"

_Haku in the alleyway._  "Yes."

The woman sighed and shrugged once more. "One final question. Do you place the people of the Village Hidden in the Sand highest in your priorities? Would you give yours and anyone else's lives for them?"

Kame tried to say yes, but once again his throat closed. Suddenly, all he could see in his mind was Tetsute and Rakuyo beating Haku, adults and children shunning her since childhood. He thought of the three chunin who abandoned their posts and kidnapped innocents, of the stories he'd heard about Gaara and Sasori's childhoods, and finally he reached his decision. "No."

He heard the two ANBU members shift behind him, and the woman raised an eyebrow. "Who do you really work for? Who are you loyal to?"

"The Kazekage." It was true.

"Why would you say that you do not care about the people of the Hidden Sand?" She seemed more confused than angry or suspicious.

"Because they have done terrible things, and I know other people who have more moral strength than any of them." Kame was reeling a little bit at these revelations within his head- He'd always prided himself on his loyalty and moral compass, but it seemed that those two didn't work together any more.  _I wonder which one the great shinobi choose,_  he thought.  _Village, or morality? Or do they never have to choose?_

Suddenly, the door to the room opened and Deihaka was standing there. "Naziru, what are you doing?"

She turned to face him with the faintest trace of a smile on her lips. "Interrogating a fugitive, of course. What does it look like?"

"It looks like you just seized one of my students and brought him in here for a pointless interrogation." Deihaka crossed his arms. "The village already thoroughly vetted every member of his family, and he's clean."

"I don't know, Deihaka of the  _Iron Hand_ , it seems to me like you're picking favorites here. This Sand shinobi is from a clan new to the village, already has a registered event of espionage on his record, and honestly told me that he doesn't care about the people of the Hidden Sand." At her use of the Iron Hand name, Deihaka grimaced- was it an inside insult?

His squad leader simply shook his head. "I don't care what you think it looks like, I'm pulling rank. You will release Kame into my custody immediately."

The woman laughed a little bit at that. "Haven't you heard, Deihaka? Genku was just murdered in cold blood inside of the Kazekage's office. We're now in a state of full security lockdown, which means  _I_ outrank  _you_." She straightened her papers and stood suddenly. "Don't worry, he's not convicted… yet… so he can return to his home under ANBU guard."

Deihaka gritted his teeth but cleared out of the way to let them ANBU agents escort Kame out of the compound. They followed him to his house, stopping outside and delivering a short warning: "We'll be watching you constantly until this situation resolves. If you attempt to flee, we will hunt you down."

Kame had a difficult time getting to sleep that night.

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The next morning started poorly as well. He woke up to the sound of cooking food, and after throwing on his clothes and grabbing his weapons, he walked down the stairs to find Deihaka in his kitchen throwing together a breakfast.

"What are you doing in my home, Deihaka-sensei!?" Kame was horrified at this invasion of his privacy, but a small-yet-undeniable part of him was glad to have someone on his side around during this crisis.

Deihaka dodged the question, grinning at him as he dished out the breakfast onto two plates on the table. "Ah, Kame, you're finally awake! Eat up, because we've got a long day ahead of us…"  _What the hell does that mean?_  Kame thought, and as if he could read thoughts Deihaka spoke again. "I spoke to the Kazekage yesterday, and he said that he can't just pardon you, so in order to clear your name we'll have to actually solve the crime." The casual way he said it briefly made Kame forget the ridiculousness of his statement.

However, the illusion lasted only a moment. "What!? The ANBU couldn't solve it, and you think that you and I can?" Deihaka nodded. "I… do you understand that…" He took a deep breath to calm himself before formulating the rest of his response. "If I am seen messing around with or near the crime scene, then I'm definitely going to be convicted."

Deihaka appeared to consider that. "You're right… Damn, you're right. Still, I'm not going to let Naziru have her way, especially not after... nevermind. So, what do you think we should do?" He gestured towards the window out into the yard. "There's two ANBU out there, which means you're still on the hit list."

Kame sighed. "I'm not going to do anything. I know I'm not guilty, so obviously my name will be cleared by itself after they catch the one who actually is."

Deihaka looked at him like  _he_ was the one with an insane plan. "Your plan is to sit here and wait for the ANBU agents to just leave on their own?"

"No, my plan is to go to my puppet lesson with Kankuro. With all due respect, sensei, I think you're letting your strange rivalry with that interior defense woman get in the way of your common sense." Kame bowed to his superior before stepping out the door. "Thanks for the food, Deihaka-sensei."

The walk to his puppet lessons was a short one, and despite looking he couldn't notice the ANBU agents following him. Not that he should be able to; if a genin could detect them then they shouldn't have ever gotten to that rank. When he approached the Hidden Sand Armory, the door guard looked at him, and then at a paper in his hands. Kame grimaced, fully expecting to be turned away, but to his surprise the man just waved him inwards and opened the door.

Once inside, he followed the instructions on hs acceptance letter to find his way to a smaller room deep within the armory. Behind the door hung row after row of puppets, as well as little parts of puppets and scattered cloth and wood littering the floor. In the back, he caught sight of a man sitting in a chair and looking straight at him. "...Kankuro-san? Is that you?"

"Yes. Come over here… Kame, right? That is your name? I sure hope you're skilled enough to succeed me."  _Well, that got very serious very quickly,_  thought Kame. Kankuro turned on a light and was revealed to be an elderly man wearing purple face-paint a black cloak, with a bored expression plastered all over his face. "Well? Are you going to reply, or…?"

"Oh! Sorry, Kankuro-san," Kame replied hastily, "I hope- no, I  _think_  I can succeed in that task."

Kankuro appeared unimpressed. "Really? You're a fresh genin, what makes you think that you should or can inherit the Sand's puppet techniques? You don't even have any history or lineage of puppet jutsu- will you just, what, make a puppet from scratch and reinvent the art?" He gestured towards the puppets lining the walls of the room.

"Well, I am highly skilled at…"  _No, that's the wrong way to go about this,_  Kame thought.  _There are definitely more talented shinobi out there._  What made him different? He thought for a few moments before settling on his answer. "You didn't have any of those things." Kankuro's expression remained unchanged, but Kame still forged ahead. "You didn't make Crow, Black Ant, or Salamander. Sasori, the greatest puppet master, laid the foundations for you with his creations and lives on through them. Now, you'll pass on the secrets that you've mastered and live on in the techniques you taught. It's the way of the puppet style and what makes it special." It was also what made it appeal so much to Kame- the idea of using the exact same techniques and tools as legendary ninja from the Hidden Sand's history gave him an undeniable rush.

Finally, Kankuro smiled.  _He knew that,_  Kame realized,  _but he wanted to see if I did as well. It was a test all along, wasn't it?_ The jonin nodded at him: "You understand it, don't you?  _Real_ understanding of that is something I don't see in many people who want to be my students. They think, 'wow, look, he used death spikes and poison!' or 'oh wow, he gets to sit back far away from the fight and make some piece of wood do all the work for him.'

"Nobody sees the true point of the puppet style- except you, apparently. Yes, you'll do fine."

( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( )

The sun was setting by the time the puppet lessons finished. Kame exited the building satisfied in the progress he'd made. A quick glance around found no ANBU agents within vision- at this point, it was more a personal quest to catch one of them than any true expectation to succeed. When he started walking, though, someone did enter his field of vision.

"Deihaka-sensei!" Kame called out to his squad leader.

The jonin turned to see him and smiled tiredly. "Kame! I've got some good news, they've narrowed down the list of suspects and you're no longer on it!"  _That's a relief._  "I guess my plan wasn't necessary after all, huh?"

Kame wisely chose not to respond to that, instead changing the subject to something more comfortable. "So, Haku finally found a way to use her chakra…"

Deihaka nodded. "Yeah. We practiced with it a little bit this morning, and it seems that the element she has the most affinity for is lightning. She did very well in our last mission… speaking of which, I feel like I was a little bit too hard on you this morning." Kame opened his mouth to protest that he was totally fine, but Deihaka went on anyway. "You did do more than your fair share, combat-wise, and at the end of the day you were at least partially responsible for taking out three Sand chunin, two cursemarked Valley chunin, and for getting us into the enemy base.

"You also probably feel like I'm being unfairly kind to Miriki." Kame nodded mutely, split between enjoying the praise and dreading what Deihaka would say next. "The simple fact of the matter is, Miriki is a ninja because he finds it fun, and to spite his family. You, however, aim for the highest ranks of ninja society. Do you think our lord Kazekage gets upset when he sees a genin receive high praise?"

"No, but-" Kame had to speak up. It wasn't a fair comparison-  _I'm in the same boat as Miriki, not in charge of him_.

Deihaka's grin faded a little bit, sternness overtaking his face and voice. "Stop making excuses."  _That's the same thing the Kazekage said to me,_  thought Kame. "You have high aspirations, and therefore I am going to do my best to get you where you want to go. Miriki will not benefit from harsh criticism because he has little desire to improve; you have much to gain from it because you truly want to grow stronger.

"Besides, at his level, Miriki doesn't have the genjutsu or taijutsu necessary to protect himself against real enemies, which is why I stationed him outside. Is that what you wanted to hear?"  _It actually is,_ thought Kame.  _He shouldn't get cut slack for being weak when he doesn't try his hardest._ Suddenly, Deihaka put a hand on his shoulder and looked him dead in the eyes. "Do you know what kind of people thrive on hearing others are weaker than them? More importantly, do  _you_  want to be that kind of person?"

With that, his teacher walked away, although those words- and the accusations of him grabbing at excuses- haunted Kame for the rest of the night.


	7. Genin Arc Ch 7

**Shinobi Union Registry (Genin) (Hidden Sand):**

**Date: 50 A4**

**Academy Graduation Exam Data: Tetsute Hasagi**  

Ninjutsu: A  
 - Notes:  _Excellent grasp of earth jutsu, capable of using techniques of chunin-level complexity_

Genjutsu: B  
 - Notes:  _Able to cast and dispel at a solid genin level_

Taijutsu: B  
 - Notes:  _Physically fast and strong, decent grasp of martial technique_

Appearance:  _Tall height (5'10"), moderate weight (150 lb), highly athletic build. Short-cut brown hair and brown eyes, typically wears standard-issue athletic garb with muted colors underneath genin vest._

Attitude: _Ambition drives him to look down on other students, but his superiority in most areas allows him to get away with it. Able to befriend and work with other top students. Treats teachers with an acceptable level of deference and follows orders to a satisfactory degree._

History:  _After clan [Redacted]. Grew up as a civilian, but sought out ninja training of his own free will and tested into academy. Started even with other ninja children but quickly pushed ahead due to his dedication to self-improvement, graduated along with two others at the top of his class._

( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( )

Miriki was late. Again. Kame, Haku, and Deihaka had been waiting for fifteen minutes since the agreed-upon meeting time, standing on the practice field with absolutely nothing to do. Kame tried to occupy himself mentally but he'd forgotten his paper at home, leaving him with very little to do but stew in rage at his teammate. Finally, Deihaka broke the silence: "I wrote up a full report on our mission."

Kame nodded, although internally he wished that his sensei had finished the task before he'd had to admit to not reporting a mission during yesterday's interrogation. "Did anything new surface?"

"Nothing new; although I feel like that Sagino girl didn't fill you all the way in yesterday."

Now Kame was interested. "What didn't she tell me?"

"Well, it's less an issue of what she told you and more how she phrased it. That wasn't a lair of Orochimaru's; in fact I doubt the man ever even set foot in there. Even Sankuryu being there is a bit of bad luck more than anything. That pit was little more than a recruitment center, a middle point where captured civilians and shinobi were prepared or purchased and then shipped off to the actual bases. Those three Valley shinobi were only converted there because they knew we were coming and decided to try out a quicker-acting cursemark.

"However, like I thought, they fell way too easily to be fully cursemarked shinobi. The faster marks may well actually make their subjects weaker by taking away their minds and granting them only minor physical boosts." Kame felt a little bit less proud of outfoxing the flying-type enemy. "Sankuryu was there to oversee the evacuation of the base, and I guess also to execute the Sand shinobi loose ends. Speaking of which, Kame, you got a good taste of his jutsu, right?"

Kame nodded. "Yes. But, what is it? Barely one hit and he laid me out flat."

"His ability is documented fairly well; he was once a Hidden Stone shinobi before Orochimaru got to him. He mastered an incredibly difficult lost jutsu that gave him his title, 'the unstoppable'. This jutsu makes his movements completely unalterable- and I mean completely. That's why he went right through your vest, shirt, and skin like it was nothing- if his strike is on course to hit you, there's little that you can do but try to dodge." Deihaka glanced at Haku. "Or, hit him before he hits you.

"Senshiko and I barely held him off, and one little slip-up nearly killed you, Kame. The man's extremely dangerous, although like most taijutsu specialists he's weak at range and against large numbers or genjutsu. If you're one-on-one, though, general orders for most jonin or lower rank shinobi are to run away. To be completely honest, Senshiko is the only reason we were able even hold against him- her Moonlight Blade technique warmed up her Kama enough that the heat was enough to ward off Sankuryu's attacks…" Kame noticed that when his jonin spoke about the Valley ninja, his eyes glazed over slightly. _I_ _s there something there? A relationship that didn't get brought up?_

His focus was broken when Deihaka changed subject abruptly. "By the way, Kame, I'm surprised that you were able to hold it together. Those were Valley shinobi we were working with to save more Valley shinobi. I'm actually impressed that you made it through the whole mission without bringing up the history of your villages."

Kame frowned. "What? What history? The Sand and Valley villages don't have anything worth mentioning in terms of historical encounters."

Deihaka's eyes widened. "Wait… so you seriously don't know about it at all?"

Now Kame was starting to get angry. "No! What is it? What are you talking about!?"

Deihaka let out a long breath. "Your ancestors, they were from the Heat Devil Village, right?" Kame nodded. "Well, you know how that village fell, right?"

"Yeah, the Hidden Leaf fought a long war with them… Wait, how  _did_  they fall?" Kame hadn't learned very much about his ancestral home. He'd been raised as a Hidden Sand shinobi, and to focus on the past village that neither he nor his parents had ever been to would only reaffirm the beliefs of the Hidden Sand members who thought they didn't belong. Kame remembered briefly looking up the Heat Devil village in a history book and finding something on the Hidden Leaf.

Deihaka shook his head. "I don't think I should… Eh, whatever. The Hidden Leaf might have fought your village, but the war was ultimately inconsequential. Both sides fought to a bitter standstill and eventually the villages agreed to a ceasefire."  _What?_  Kame was confused now.  _If the Leaf didn't destroy it, then who-_  "Then, in the ashes of the war, as your village recuperated, the Village Hidden in the Valleys took their opportunity to completely wipe out a rival lesser village. There were no recorded- wait, no, there was one survivor, but he died a few decades afterward."

_He's talking about Genno the Trap Master_. The famous Heat Devil ninja was one of Kame's idols, a man from the Hakiara clan who, without kekkeigenkai or Biju, managed to achieve notoriety across the shinobi world. There was a confusing report of more recent actions that he may have taken in the Hidden Leaf, but Konohagakure ninja had blotted out all details. Kame may have told himself and Deihaka and anyone else who would listen that he cared about no village other than the Hidden Sand, but it was at least in part a lie- When he thought about the Heat Devil village, he felt a sort of pride and connection that he chalked up to simple love for his ancestral home.

However, the news that the Hidden Valley village had destroyed it was surprisingly… lackluster. The more Kame thought about it, the more he realized that he simply didn't care enough about it to get angry at anyone. His great-grandparents' village had been destroyed; but they had already left midway through the war with the Leaf in search of a more peaceful home. The Hidden Valley ninja he'd met had been mostly nice as well as impressively skilled, and he wasn't about to ruin his relationship with them for the sake of their ancestors' sins against his ancestors.

Finally, he gathered himself and looked back at Deihaka, preparing a response, but froze instead as he looked over his sensei's shoulder towards the arena gate. The guy walking through it was clad in a white cloak that only one person he knew would be caught dead wearing.  _God damn it_ , Kame thought, all traces of the previous conversation wiped from his mind as sheer annoyance flooded through him.

"Alright, I'm here, Deihaka-sensei." Miriki had the sheer nerve to walk up like he was the one being inconvenienced. "You know, sensei, if you want to schedule any more of these sudden, last-minute lessons, can you warn me in advance? I'm standing up a lovely girl right now."

Deihaka rolled his eyes. "Missing one date isn't the end of the world, Miriki. And anyway, this wasn't a last-minute scheduling! I told you all about it two days ago while we were returning from our mission, and reminded you about it this morning."

Miriki sighed. "Deihaka-sensei, you have to make sure that I'm paying attention when you tell me things." Kame couldn't believe what he was hearing. Had Miriki somehow managed to blame Deihaka for his own inattentiveness?

Deihaka just sighed. "I don't care enough about this conversation to fight you on this anymore. You're here now, so I'm starting the lesson. Now, team eight: during our last mission, I noticed something. Anyone want to take a guess at what it was? I'll give you a hint, it was something that out of all of you, was only used once."

Kame knew the answer, he'd thought about it himself. "Besides my substitution, none of us used any ninjutsu whatsoever. Well, Haku did use a lightning stance, but outside of that nobody used any complex ninjutsu of any sort."

"Correct." Deihaka looked a little bit disappointed as he thought about it. "When I heard you say that you'd achieved two changes of nature at your age, I was very excited about your prospects; but after seeing you in action I'm not so convinced. If you haven't mastered any non-basic ninjutsu or genjutsu, then why would you talk about nature changes?"

"Well, sensei, I have mastered several ninjutsu!" Kame was indignant.

"Like what?"

Kame thought about it. "Let's see… the clone jutsu, the transformation jutsu, the illusion jutsu... uhm… the substitution jutsu... the…"  _I really am pathetic_ , Kame thought.  _Seriously!? That's four jutsu! Do I really only know those four academy-level techniques?_  He considered the other half of Deihaka's earlier question. "The reason I picked up changes in nature so early is for paperbomb creation- I discovered that when loading them with chakra, if I used wind or fire release chakra, I could change the effects of their detonation..."

Deihaka, as if sensing his distress, patted him on the shoulder. "Don't be hard on yourself about the jutsu thing… although you'll have to learn more of them, at least you understand the basics- I mean..." He trailed off, glancing at Haku awkwardly, before trying to resume what he'd been saying. "Anyway, the reason most ninja use ninjutsu is to achieve destructive power that you just can't get with taijutsu, but your unique focus on paperbombs has filled that hole for you. Therefore, I think you should focus on tactical ninjutsu in order to supplement your fighting style."

He turned to Miriki and Haku. "However, for you two, I'm going to do my damnedest to teach you some more basic offensive ninjutsu. Miriki, I know you want to focus on your genjutsu, but even if you incapacitate opponents, you need a finisher to put them down while you can. And Haku, your taijutsu may be excellent, but when grossly outnumbered, or when an enemy has a way to prevent you from closing the gap and getting to them, you need a way to fight back."

Then he smiled, gesturing to the three tall wooden posts sticking up from the sand. "This is a pretty standard exercise for teaching high-level chakra control, which is the first step to mastering jutsu of any type. You three are going to climb up these posts, but you cannot use your hands." As he spoke, he approached the posts and then walked straight up one of them. "The trick to this exercise is to push chakra through the soles of your feet, and maintain a steady flow of it."

He leaped backwards off of the post and back to the earth, then turned and gestured towards the posts. "Well? Let's get to it!"

Kame walked up to the post and considered it briefly. The trick here should be to use chakra to bind his feet to the wood of the pole. Briefly centering himself, he focused in on the chakra running through his body and gently urged it towards his feet, feeling it pool there, and then strode forward. A small rush of accomplishment entered his mind when it worked, first one foot then the other planting and remaining locked onto the wood. He made it a good seven or eight feet up the wooden post before a small gust of wind distracted him just enough to dislodge his feet.

After landing awkwardly on his back, Kame gritted his teeth and tried again. This time, he closed off his mind to anything but the wood beneath his feet and himself, ignoring any wind or noise that would break his concentration. Step by step he made his way upward until he reached the end, then he swung himself around to sit atop the pole, finally allowing himself to glance downwards at the others of his team.

Miriki was also making progress, wobbly but still managing to make his way upwards. However, at about a third of the way up the 45 foot climb, something happened to make him lose grip and fall to the ground.

Haku, on the other hand, wasn't managing anything at all. Kame watched as she closed her eyes in focus, but instead of the sand around her feet swirling inwards as it should if she was managing to make her chakra bind, it merely shook in place. Deihaka glanced her way, but instead of trying anything with her he walked up to Miriki and had a quiet talk with him. Miriki nodded and then tried again to climb the post, closing his eyes and walking far more steadily this time.

Whatever Deihaka-sensei had told him to do must have been worked, because he made it all the way to the top in his next attempt, albeit more slowly than Kame had. Deihaka beckoned them to come back down, and they both hopped back down, using the poles to slow themselves just enough to avoid getting hurt upon landing. "Okay, great, now that you've all…" He trailed off, looking at Haku.

She looked back at him for a few long seconds before sighing and turning towards the gate out of the practice arena. "I… I think I'm just… I'm heading home." She walked away without anyone saying anything further.

After she'd left, Kame found his voice. "Deihaka-sensei, why would you invite her to this if you knew that she wouldn't be able to do it!?"

When Deihaka turned to face him, he was surprised by the look of bitterness his sensei held. "As opposed to what? Calling you two here and not inviting her? Or telling her expressly not to come?"

Kame wouldn't back down. "It's better than having her come here just to remind her that she's crippled!"

"Is it? Why don't you just teach her, then..." Deihaka trailed off painfully. When he spoke again, his tone was more defeated than aggressive. "When I agreed to be a genin squad leader, I didn't know I'd be teaching her. I'm not a taijutsu expert, I don't know what…"

Miriki, clearly wanting a way out of this awkward situation, broke the silence. "Can we get on with jutsu training, please?"

Deihaka nodded. "Yes. Yes! Anyway, I have Wind and Earth affinity, but I've also learned the water release, so I know a few jutsu for each of you. Kame, I want you to learn the Gale Force Jutsu, which creates a massive outward blast of wind directly in front of you. That should help you with both disengaging from attacks and speeding up your own paper airplanes. Miriki, I want you to learn the Water Prison Jutsu. It's a very strong technique that can hold most ninja and should serve as that finisher I was talking about."

He walked up to Kame first. "The Gale Force Jutsu is a simple one to cast, but much harder to control. To do it, you need to complete a wind change of nature, and then focus all of your chakra on a point without actually allowing any of it out of your body. After a sufficient level of power is achieved, you release it, and all of the wind chakra will condense and subsequently expand on that point, pushing you and anything else around it away with extreme speed."

He raised a hand in front of him, and after a few seconds of concentration, a blast of wind knocked him and Kame backwards away from where his hand had been.  _How about a little warning next time?_ Kame thought as he stood up. His rib was still a little bit sore, but it had been mostly healed by the medical ninja after he'd returned to Sunagakure. Deihaka was oblivious to what he'd done, grinning at him. "See? First, I want you to practice simply gathering the chakra and changing its nature without letting it escape- releasing will come naturally afterwards."

Kame nodded. Focusing in on his chakra network and on the space around his hand, he pushed his chakra towards the points on his palm. However, as the chakra quickly built up he failed to maintain control and a small burst of power came forward, laughably weak.  _So the trick really is in building it up to a reasonable level._  He tried again, this time forcibly restraining the chakra and building it up more and more, until…

Damn. He pushed it back too much, and this time it snapped back into his body and resumed normal circulation.  _I haven't even started on the Wind change of nature yet, this is going to take a lot of practice._  He tried again, and again, and again, each time failing, but also getting closer and closer to the correct technique. On his twentieth attempt, he finally managed it; building up the chakra enough to get a real store of power and then let it all out before him, unleashing a visible burst of blue chakra energy.

_Wait, I have a lesson with Kankuro later today,_  Kame thought.  _I'd better finish learning this jutsu by then. In that case, time for the wind change of nature…_

( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( )

"Okay, now send the signal," Kankuro ordered.

Kame grunted and tried to do as he was told, sending a pulse along his chakra thread across the five-foot-gap between him and the puppet arm. Struggling to maintain control when the pulse of his energy reached the disjointed arm, he tried to recreate what Kankuro had described,  _activating_  the metal he sensed within the wood. His efforts were met with a tiny 'snik' noise and a small point of metal poking itself from the forearm of his puppet's arm.

Kankuro nodded. "Good, that's progress." He reset the blade back into the arm and turned back to Kame. "Now, again!" Another pulse, and this time Kame used the same sort of chakra control he'd had to focus in on (during his earlier training) to force the blade forward. Despite the resistance, Kame simply pushed harder mentally-  _I won't be beaten by this stupid little piece of iron!_  In one final shove, he gave a little too much chakra and keeled over onto his knees, breathing heavily, but satisfied with the sight of a full blade emerged from the arm.

However, Kankuro wasn't pleased. "You did it." His voice wasn't supportive any longer, now holding in it a tinge of annoyance. "Now what?" Kame wasn't sure what he was being asked… "You used up all of your chakra in that push- the point of puppet jutsu isn't to manhandle the puppet around with sheer force of will. You're supposed to work  _with_  the puppet and use it like you would use an arm or leg."

Kame felt his face color a little bit. His momentary success now seemed to trivial compared to Kankuro's disappointment. "I'm sorry, master… I see now."

Kankuro waved him off. "Bah, whatever. You've used up too much chakra now, so no more lessons. Take the rest of the day off, but when you come back, I expect you to have more restraint." As Kame stepped out the door, his last glimpse of Kankuro was of the man turning back around to tinker with the severed puppet arm, looking more sad or bored than angry.  _Maybe these lessons are as fun for him as they are for me?_  Kame thought, although that was a fairly egotistical thing to think.

As if he knew what Kame was thinking, Kankuro looked up and resumed his glare, maintaining the anger in his expression until Kame was out of sight.

When Kame stepped out the door of the Hidden Sand Armory, he couldn't help but feel happy despite being booted out of his class.  _Things are starting to look up,_  he thought, and although the start had been a little bit rough, he was starting to enjoy life as a shinobi. Because (for some stupid reason) Haku was still on the suspects list, their squad wouldn't be allowed out of the village on missions until this whole spy situation blew over. Honestly, though, it wasn't half as bad as Kame thought it would be. With Deihaka's elemental jutsu and Kankuro's puppet jutsu lessons to fill his time, boredom would likely be a thing of the past.

Kankuro was a much better teacher than his first impression had made him out to be. His grasp both of the Puppet style and of the difficulties of learning it made him an excellent instructor, and although he could be harsh, for the most part Kame was finding his puppetry lessons to be very informative. Deihaka was… less excellent, although that may be attributable to him having to micro-manage Miriki constantly.  _Honestly, Deihaka-sensei seems like he'd rather not even be handling a genin team, so why is he in charge of one?_ A pang of hunger ended that train of thought before it even truly began.

Kame decided to swing by the market on the way home and buy some ingredients for dinner. Due to his parents being almost perpetually away from home, he'd actually amassed a reasonable level of skill as a chef.  _Tonight I feel like… teriyaki beef_. That meant he'd have to go by the butcher's, so he turned in that direction, taking him through the restaurant district.

Somehow, he knew something was wrong from almost a block away. The feeling grew stronger with each step he took in that direction, and then he started to hear the whispers, coming from all directions. People weren't gathered or anything dramatic like that, but they all seemed to shy away from something, talking in hushed tones, all radiating from a central point maybe 20 meters away and to the right. Kame, almost afraid to look, pushed aside the curtain of Sunagakure's only ramen shop and saw Haku sitting alone at the bar.

Suddenly, the whispering grew all too clear to him.  _Traitor. Spy. Murderer._  Even though the restaurant should have been full on a Friday night like tonight, it wasn't- quite a few tables were left empty, and the bar was barren of any customers whatsoever.  _The hit-list wasn't supposed to be public; did someone release Haku's name?_  Kame walked towards his teammate, not sure what he intended to do but unable to stop himself from putting one foot ahead of the other.

He froze, though, when Tetsute emerged from the kitchen and stood across the bar from Haku, leering at her.  _Crap, that's right, his parents run this place,_  Kame remembered. "Hey, Haku. Could you maybe… find somewhere else to eat?" She said nothing and didn't move, but he didn't let up. "Haku." When she still didn't move, he tapped her on the forehead, pushing her head back until she was looking at him. "You're scaring off all of the customers,  _Kodoku_." The name seemed to finally draw something from her, as she stood up and turned towards the door.

Her eyes met Kame's, and he saw the level of pain that was there, as she walked towards him. He thought about his home, and his dinner plans, and about inviting her to eat at with him… But in the eyes of Tetsute staring at him, he simply froze like a deer in the headlights and let Haku go right around him and out of sight, with townspeople parting to keep a visible bubble around her until she was out of sight.

Tetsute grabbed him by the arm. "Hey, dude, what's up! It's been a few days, how the new squad? Can't imagine it's much fun with Miriki and Kodok- I mean, Haku, on it…" His grin weakened a little when Kame didn't respond. "Let's catch up over some ramen, eh? Gotta grab seats quick, though, with her gone the bar's gonna fill up in minutes." Kame still remained silent and still. "Kame? Earth to Kame, what-"

Kame turned to look his friend in the eye, hoping the accusation in his heart made it to his face and voice. "How long have you been picking on Haku like this!?"

Tetsute narrowed his eyes. "I'm not… Are you defending her?" He seemed genuinely amazed by this reaction. "You, Kame Hakiara, _you're_ gonna lecture me!? I'm pushing her out of my family's shop because as long as she's in here, we're not making any money. You know how she is; people already avoid her like the plague. Not to mention how Genji overheard some some Interior Defense chunin talking about how she was the one who killed Genku, and now everyone knows that she did it. She's a traitor and a loser, she's costing us money, and so I told her to leave the restaurant! You have no right to-"

This time, Kame grabbed the other boy's shirt to shut him up. "And you had no right to try to push her out of our team!"

"What? How did you- You know what, it doesn't even matter. You have no moral high ground to stand on, Kame." Tetsute swung an arm up to dislodge Kame's hand from his shirtfront. "You sat there with me and Rakuyo at the academy talking down about all of the other students. You called everyone below us weaklings and treated them as badly as Rakuyo and I did. What was that nickname you came up for for Miriki? Loverboy?"

Kame was too lost in his thoughts to make any retort. Was he really like them, a bully? He considered all the times he'd brushed off students asking him for tips on ninjutsu, ignored their attempts at friendship, and dismissed them mentally simply because he was stronger than them. For some reason, Deihaka's parting words from a few days ago came into his mind: 'Do you really want to be that kind of person?' But faced with Tetsute and with all of the ugliness of neglect sitting in his mind, there was only one answer. "No." Kame steeled himself. "I never hated any of them. And I definitely never tried to hurt any of them. That's what makes me and you different."

Tetsute snorted, but turned back towards the kitchen of the restaurant. "Sure, sure, whatever lets you sleep peacefully. I guess spending too much time with the cripples made you start loving them, eh?" Kame didn't even merit that statement with a response, simply turning towards the butcher's shop and trying to make peace with himself mentally.

However, even after buying, preparing, and eating dinner, he still wasn't able to calm his troubled mind. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that Tetsute had always been this way- but not only that, he also realized that he himself had been that way. On the day of the academy graduation exam, he'd dismissed the weaker participants just because his scores had been higher. Did skill at shuriken throwing really give his life any more meaning than theirs?

Even recently he'd been selfish. All week long, he'd been so relieved to be off the hook for treason that he'd ignored Haku's suffering, which had probably been infinitely worse than his as someone who'd already been an outcast.  _Kodoku_. Tetsute's nickname for her literally meant 'loner', and tonight had been Kame's first real taste of what that meant. The image of her sitting alone at the bar stuck in his mind, and even when he escaped to sleep his dreams were of running to sit next to Haku but never reaching her.


	8. Training Arc Vol 3

**Ninja Profile: Rakuyo Kunayari**

Ninjutsu: B  
Genjutsu: C  
Taijutsu: B

Description: Rakuyo stands at a normal height, usually found with confident posture and an easygoing smirk. She wears the shirt and skirt typical for kunoichi, tying her black hair back in a ponytail. Her eyes are hazel-green, as is her clothing.

Origin: Rakuyo hails from the Kunayari family within the Hidden Sand. The Kunayari have been producing Sand shinobi since the village was founded and Rakuyo is not one to break from their tradition. She became a ninja to honor the legacy of her ancestors, but (along with Tetsute and Kame) upon entering the academy she found that most of the students were more untalented than she'd imagined. Rather than accept that her own ancestors had been this way, Rakuyo chose to believe that the 'weaklings' she found simply didn't deserve to be ninja and treated them as such.

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Mere minutes after getting up, Kame heard a knock on the door and was met with the sight of an middle-aged male Interior Defense ninja standing just outside. When the man saw him, he sighed and delivered a message in a monotone that indicated his complete lack of interest in the task at hand: "You have been summoned to the Kazekage's office. Our lord Gaara wishes to apologize for your treatment during the recently concluded investigation. You also have the deepest apologies of the Interior Defense Corps for our misconviction of you."

Before Kame could ask for any more details, the man had already walked away, leaving the him in a confused state of suspension-  _So they found the real traitor, and now the Kazekage himself wants to apologize to me? Can I eat breakfast first? Is this thing right now, or…?_  Kame decided that perhaps it would be better to be safe than sorry, and left straight for the Kazekage's office. A long walk later and he was standing before the literal center of the Village Hidden in the Sand, preparing himself to go inside.

Even as he stepped into the building, a nagging suspicion in his head grew louder and louder.  _Why would the Kazekage apologize to me? This doesn't seem like a normal occurrence, and besides, it's Naziru who should be apologizing._  He briefly shuddered at the absurdity of the image of that evil-looking woman apologizing to him. There was definitely something off, but Kame had little choice other than to walk forward until a shinobi stepped over and looked him in the eye. "Kame Hakiara?"

Kame could only nod, which seemed to satisfy the older ninja. The man began walking towards a door off to the left, tossing, "follow me," over his shoulder. They walked along a winding circular path, past door after door and up a good five or six floors, all in complete silence. Finally they reached a larger set of double door and his guide stopped, gesturing towards the entrance. "The Kazekage's expecting you."

_Could he have phrased that any more ominously?_  Kame hoped that his nervous swallow wasn't noticeable as he stepped into the office of the Kazekage for the first time in his life. Upon entering, the first thing he thought was,  _This is actually… not that intimidating_. The office was sparsely decorated with a bare minimum of a few portraits hung on the walls, a large window at the back, and a desk and two chair, upon one of which sat…  _I take it back, this is very intimidating._  The Kazekage was staring at him with sullen blue eyes ringed in black.

Kame stood, locked in place, until Gaara gestured towards the chair and raised an eyebrow. The genin coughed a little and nodded, shuffling forwards to sit down in the seat and bowing his head in deferrence.  _Why isn't he talking? Am I supposed to greet him?_ "Um… hello… I mean, greetings, lord Kazekage!"  _Damn, I sounded so awkward._

Gaara sighed. "Lift up your head and look at me, Kame." Kame raised his eyes to meet the Kazekage's. "I've called you here to apologize for you being taken in during the recent investigation, which was uncalled for given what little evidence we had at the time."

Kame failed to suppress the confusion in his mind from making it to his face, and desperately tried to cover it up with a rushed statement. "B-but you're the Kazekage, why… why would you have to apologize to me, and… I mean, it… it was Naziru who pulled me in, and I don't think…"

Gaara nodded, cutting his stuttering off before it could go any further. "You're right. I wouldn't call you all the way out here to deliver a formal apology; we have mail for that purpose. But now that I've gotten that pretense out of the way, I have another subject to discuss with you, something that I need you to do."

Kame swallowed.  _I should feel honored that the Kazekage would give me a task, but why do I feel like this is going to be…_  "What is it?" He asked.

"I need you to be a better teammate to Haku Yorutsume." Lord Gaara's face had turned almost a little bit… sad? Regretful?

However, Kame was already hung up on the issue of Kame, and when someone else pushed him on it he instinctively snapped. "I have! I haven't done anything to her, it was the other kids who picked on her! I've included… I've…" He trailed off.  _Last night I left her alone, didn't I? I have no ground to stand on here._

The Kazekage was unimpressed. "Whatever it is that you're doing, you're failing."

"Why don't  _you_  do something, then?" Kame was reckless in his defensiveness, forgetting momentarily that he was speaking the the Kazekage.

"Because… Deihaka explained her situation to you, yes? As much as Naruto has helped to make the ninja world a more peaceful place, there remains a power balance between the village. For the Hidden Sand to have not only the onetails jinchuriki, but also a fragment of the Tentails, would upset that balance. I can't afford to pay her any undue attention or other villages would take notice. A few years ago, they  _did_ , and-" he clammed up, but looked at Kame expectantly.

_I guess it doesn't even matter if she's not a strong ninja_ , thought Kame.  _As long as she holds the tentails, she's a target._  "You still put her alone, far from everyone. What did you think would happen if you separated her from everyone else and left them with only one memory of her, a terrible one?"

The Kazekage was acting strangely. He leaned forward, putting his head in his hands, and sighed in defeat rather than exasperation. "I… I didn't have any choice. She attacked the other children. Every parent who had a child there was begging me to move her to another village. I can't just… wave my hands and make her accepted and loved, don't you understand?" He sounded like he was arguing to himself more than anyone else.

"I'm doing as much as I can, but neither can I." Kame shook his head.

Lord Gaara didn't even register his words, continuing to mumble. "I thought… I thought that the Kage of the past were wrong. I was so sure that I wouldn't repeat their mistakes, but… I'm no different, am I? I'm even worse."

_Well, this is the most awkward I've ever felt,_  thought Kame.  _What am I supposed to do here…? Do I comfort the Kazekage? Maybe I should just leave._  Suddenly Gaara seemed to snap out of whatever mental state he'd been and looked up at him. "Kame, I can't do any more for her. You have to help her, whatever it takes."

Kame was annoyed at this point. "Lord Kazekage, with all due respect, I've already told you that I'm doing everything I can!"

"Well it's not enough!" The Kazekage's eyes blazed, but Kame wouldn't back down either.

"Who are you to tell me what's enough!? You don't even know her, and you're preaching at me about what she needs! I'm trying to-"

The Kazekage cut him off with a voice devoid of passion. "Last night, Haku tried to kill herself."

_What?_

The news went off like a bomb in Kame's mind, and he shut up instantly.  _She… she tried…_ the simple facts refused to register. In shock, his mind drifted to the scene at the restaurant, people keeping away from her and speaking about her behind her back. He remembered Tetsute publicly forcing her to leave the restaurant, calling her  _Kodoku_  and telling her that everyone hated her. And then, he remembered himself, standing there and just watching her like every other person in the restaurant- no, like every other person in her life.

_What the hell is wrong with me?_  Kame collapsed forward, head in his hands, just as the Kazekage had done minutes before. He imagined what Haku had felt, coming back from a mission that must have been one of the first times she'd felt accepted in her life, maybe even hoping that things had changed… Only to return to a village hating her even more than they already had. To be bullied by the same guy, silently hated by the same townspeople, pushed out of the training she'd started to enjoy, and even ignored by one of the people she'd believed in.  _I'm pathetic._

Lord Gaara gathered himself, facing Kame again. "Late last night, we found and dealt with the man who'd killed Genku, and I decided to go to Haku's house and apologize to her. By sheer chance I found her mid-fall off of the cliff after jumping off. If she'd died there's a good chance that the tentails would have emerged and destroyed the Hidden Sand. I caught her, did my best to calm her, and stayed with her until she eventually fell asleep and I was confident that she wouldn't try it again. However, this is unsustainable- if she was depressed enough to end her own life, then she's in pain and has been for a long time."

Kame raised himself slowly until he was sitting straight up and looking Gaara in the eye. "I… I'm going to help… I promise on my life as a Shinobi of the Village Hidden in the Sand that I will help her, however I can. I'll protect her from ever going to that place again."

The Kazekage let out a long breath. "I truly hope that you can succeed where I failed, Kame. Haku… She reminds me so much of myself, and of Naruto, but instead of blaming the people around her like I did or the flawed shinobi world like Naruto did, she blames herself. It's a heavy burden that you're trying to lift from her shoulders."

Kame nodded, now set in his course. "I'll do it. I swear to save Haku."

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When the squad next gathered, later that day, Kame had done some research and had something to suggest. This time, Miriki's tardiness didn't annoy him (much) because there was an idea he wanted to share with Deihaka and Haku. "Deihaka-sensei, Haku," he said, getting their attention, "I have a suggestion."

Deihaka looked at him curiously. "Let's hear it."

"I think that, if you're going to continue teaching us jutsu, Haku is just wasting her time." Kame felt a little bit of regret for putting it that way when he saw Haku flinch and turn away. "I think that we need a trainer who can instruct her in high-level taijutsu. No offense, sensei, but I don't think you're the right person to do that."

Deihaka shrugged but didn't object to the statement. Kame decided to keep going, seeing Haku start to look a little more happy. "I spoke to the Kazekage and he told me about someone similar to you, Haku- someone who couldn't use ninjutsu or genjutsu at all but ended up as a successful ninja anyway. His name is Shira and he's currently living far to the north, on the outskirts of the Land of Wind."

Haku glanced up at him and her eyes betrayed a glimmer of hope. "I… if he really can teach me, then…"

Deihaka was more skeptical. "Okay, that sounds great, except for the fact that this man lives at the northern border, and Haku is on our team. How is that going to work?"

"Well, that's the thing… Lord Kazekage told me that he's likely to respond a lot more favorably if Haku is actually in front of him, so… can we go to him?" Deihaka started to say something, his face twisting in frustration, but Kame quickly continued. "We aren't up for any missions, but since Haku's been cleared the squad should be okay to leave the village, right? We could make it there in only a day or two and then try to convince him to come back with us."

Deihaka shook his head. "I'm not taking the whole squad two days north to go harass an old retired ninja at his own home." Haku's shoulders sagged a little bit, but then- "However, we technically  _aren't_  up for any missions, so I could… hold off on resuming them for a few days. I would remain and teach Miriki, of course, but you two could go."

Kame cheered a little bit internally before turning to Haku. "Sounds great. Haku, can you pack up? We can leave this afternoon, if you want." She nodded. "Okay, let's meet up at the village gate at… two?" Another nod, then Haku darted off towards her house, leaving Kame to head towards his, stopping by Kankuro's workshop to let him know the situation.

"You're neglecting your training!? We're two lessons in, you ingrateful-"

"Master, I'm truly sorry, but… it's Haku. She needs a teacher, so I'm heading off to find one with her."

"Haku, isn't she the..." Kankuro's eyes widened in realization, but then he shook his head and resumed a frustrated expression. "What about  _your_  teacher, you disobedient, undutiful, lazy... argh. This is what I get for choosing you as the inheritor of my art?"

Kame winced. "I'm sorry, Master. But the Kazekage- I mean, Gaara, told me to help her find a better mental state, and I think this is the only way I can do that. She's in a lot of pain, and..." he trailed off, but it was enough to make Kankuro's resistance melt away.

"Go, then. I… I wish I'd been there for Gaara the way you're here for the Yorutsume girl." Kankuro's voice was no longer angry, but forlorn. Kame remembered the stories he'd heard of the Kazekage's childhood, and of the neglect and hatred he'd suffered so much like Haku had.

Kame then went straight for his house, picking up enough food for six nights (three if he shared with Haku) as well as a generous supply of ninja tools and paperbombs. Packing everything into his satchel, he then went straight for the gate. Haku arrived about the same time as he did, and wordlessly they left for their destination.

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They finally arrived in the late afternoon the next day, a bit over 24 hours after they had left the Village Hidden in the Sand. Their destination was somewhat unimpressive; a small gathering of houses with a few small farms surrounding it. They'd long since left the massive desert that the Land of Wind was famous for, the country now looking more like savannah.

Kame had spoken with Haku during the trip there, more than he ever had before- although that wasn't saying much. She was extremely reluctant to share her opinions or beliefs with him, although she  _was_  quick to comment on other things. Funnily enough, she was actually almost as much of a geek about historical ninja as he was. They'd spent a good hour arguing over the relative strengths of the members of the Akatsuki (she  _still_  maintained that Kisame would have won against Konan, despite his taijutsu being most likely worthless against her Dance of the Shikigami).

The books he'd found at her home made a little more sense now; they were histories of the Shinobi World Wars. Haku was strangely obsessed with finding more information about strong ninja, especially strong users of the various kekkegenkai scattered about the villages. However, when Kame had asked her about her own clan, she'd had very little to say. When he asked about its collapse, she'd closed up to him completely again, so he'd quickly abandoned the project.

When they found their way into the village center, a sand chunin approached them carefully. "What is your business here?"  _Ah, yes, this village is close to the border, so they're more likely to be suspicious of newcomers' intentions,_  Kame thought, remembering his parents' stories about enemy spies attempting to cross in from other lands.

He decided to take the initiative in their conversation. "I'm here to find a retired shinobi who goes by the name 'Shira'. Do you know anything about where I could locate him?"

The chunin still didn't back down. "And why are you hunting Shira?"

Kame was confused- his Sand headband was clearly visible on his forehead, as was Haku's around her neck. "We're Sand shinobi looking for another sand shinobi, I don't see what the problem is here…?"

The chunin loosened up only a little bit. "Shira is… he's not in a great state to accept visitors. His wife died a few weeks ago, and he's in mourning. Nobody's seen him since then, he's just holed himself up in that house."  _Crap,_  Kame thought,  _he'll never accept- wait, what am I thinking!? A woman died and all I can think about is her husband being less likely to help me!?_

While he was stuck mentally reprimanding himself, Haku stepped forward. "I… I'm very sorry about his loss. However, should he really be left by himself?"

"Huh?" The chunin narrowed his eyes.

"Well, someone close to him died, and you're leaving him to deal with it alone? Does he have any friends in this village?"

"Of course!" The man seemed to take her criticism as a personal attack. "He's lived and worked here for decades, almost everyone here would count themselves among his friends!"

Haku looked at him with confusion. "But when he most needs friendship, you're leaving him to deal with the pain alone? Besides, the question isn't whether you count yourself among his friends, the question is are you being a friend to him?" Kame didn't know what to think. For someone who'd been so alone, Haku certainly had a lot to preach about friendship- although, she wasn't wrong. Maybe her loss and loneliness had helped her to understand Shira's situation better than anyone else.

The chunin's eyes widened in slight realization, but he still blocked their path. "I'm afraid that unless you tell me specifically what you're doing in this village, I need to ask you to leave."

Kame butted back in. "We're looking for taijutsu training. Haku," he gestured towards her, "needs a high-level instructor in hand-to-hand taijutsu and we weren't able to find any in the Hidden Sand. The Kazekage told us of Shira, and so we came here."

At the mention of the Kazekage's name, the chunin finally broke. "Fine, go on ahead, he lives in the house over on that hill" he said, pointing towards the house in question and stepping out of their way. As they walked by him, though, Kame heard him mutter, "If you're trying anything sneaky, I guess it's your funeral."  _Was he talking about Shira?_  Kame wondered.  _If he's a taijutsu specialist around Lord Gaara's age, then how dangerous could he be? Taijutsu users rely heavily on their body, and time wreaks havoc on their abilities._

Nevertheless, he pushed forward with Haku along the main street of the town, dodging a pair of giggling children. One of them tagged the other and then they ran back the way they'd come, with a reversal of who was chasing who. They were so caught up in it that the lead girl ran straight into Haku, bouncing off and falling backwards. Haku flinched, far more than she should have, and looked strangely  _afraid_  of the child, but stopped a little bit when she saw the girl get up and smile at her.

"I don' think I've seen you 'fore!" The little girl had to be five or six.

Haku smiled hesitantly. "That's because I'm just here visiting. What's your name?"

The girl pointed at her friend. "I'm Yuki, an' this is Kina!" She tilted her head, looking at Haku curiously. "What's your name? An' who are you visiting?"

Haku smiled. "My name's Haku. I'm here to see Shira, do you know him?"

The girl's smile somehow widened even further. "Shira's the best! He's always nice an' smart an' cool an' gives us candy!" She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Mom says I'm not allowed to eat too much candy, but Shira still gives it to me… 'least, he used to, 'fore auntie Yome died…" The girl bowed her head a little bit, her brilliant smile disappearing.

Haku slung her pack around, digging around inside it for a few seconds before finally pulling out a closed hand. She reached forward and opened it in front of the little girl, whose eyes widened at the sight of a few wrapped candies sitting on her open palm. After a few seconds of awe, the girl looked up at Haku. "Can I have 'em? Really?"

"Yeah, go ahead." The moment Haku's words left her mouth, the girl had snatched the candies and unwrapped one in milliseconds. "Thanks, new lady! Tell uncle Shira I said hi!" The girl darted off, offering another of the candies to her friend as they disappeared behind another building.

When they continued on their way, Kame couldn't help but glance over at Haku.  _Why is she so different now?_ He wondered what she would have been like if the Sand hadn't neglected her.  _Is this the real Haku? Smiling, great with kids, always wanting to lend a hand to people who are sad?_

They finally reached their destination, a small cottage up on a hill near the center of the tiny town. There was no fence or gate, so Kame just shrugged and walked straight up to the door, knocking a few times. The door was opened almost the second his knuckles left the wood, and he found himself staring at an old man with hair completely white, although his weirdly youthful skin wasn't wrinkled at all.

The man spoke in a voice that was also deceptively young-sounding, more like a middle-aged man than an elder. "Hello, visitors, my name is Shira."

Kame started to reply. "Greetings. My name is Kame, and this is Ha-"

He was cut off almost immediately. "Come in, come in. Why don't you tell me your names?"

_What is wrong with this guy?_ Kame tried again. "My name is Kame, and my friend's name is Ha-"

"Speak up! I don't hear very well anymore, you'll have to be louder than that."

Kame looked around, wondering if this was some sort of elaborate prank, before starting again, enunciating and raising his voice a bit. "Hello. My name is Kame and-"

"Come on, kid, I said I don't hear so well." Shira was like a blank slate, staring at him.

_Crap, if I make him any more self-conscious about his hearing I might blow my chance at getting Haku a teacher!_  Kame steeled himself, before screaming (with a fair bit more voice cracking than he'd like to admit): "HELLO! MY NAME IS KAME HAKIARA AND THIS IS… Is… is…" He trailed off at the sight of Shira laughing hysterically, almost falling out of his seat. Haku was laughing right along with the older man- Haku was laughing! Kame had never heard her laugh before, and she was surprisingly loud and energetic about it, in sharp contrast to her normally shy and calm demeanor.

Shira calmed down enough to get out a few words in between chuckles. "You… you should have seen the…" he put on a squeaky fake voice: "My nAmE Is kAMe hAkiARa!" Both he and Haku dissolved into laughter again, and this time Kame couldn't help but join in. As their laughter died down, finally Shira turned to Kame and spoke. "I can hear you fine, that was just a little bit of humor- you younger generation are so gullible around people you respect."

Kame nodded. "I… Anyway, as I was saying, my name is Kame Hakiara and this is my teammate, Haku Yorutsume. Before I get to why we've come, I'd like to offer my condolences for your wife."

Shira nodded, the mirth evaporating from his face. "I appreciate your sentiment. She was…" He trailed off.  _How do I talk to him now?_  Kame was unsure how to proceed.  _Asking him for something now is probably a bad idea, but I can't just leave… What do I do?_

Kame tested the waters a little bit. "Are you going to leave this village? Now that…"

Shira shook his head sadly. "No, I have to stay with Yome." He nodded towards a window, outside of which there was a grave sitting next to the house.

_He's still attached to her_ , Kame thought, but decided now was as good a time as any to make his request. "Shira-san, I have a request for you." When Shira looked up at him, he continued. "I want to ask you to come to the Village Hidden in the Sand, and help train Haku."

Shira frowned. "I'm honored that you came all this way to ask for my help in training her, but… I have to stay…" He glanced again at the grave.

Haku spoke up. "Shira-san, Yuki and Kina really miss you."

"I…" At the mention of the two little girls, Shira frowned.

Kame sensed his chance, and filled in where Shira had left off. "You are mourning your wife, and I understand that. But let me tell you something about Haku, before you make your decision." Gaara had told Kame the full story of Shira and his squad before they'd left. "When Yome first came to you, what was it that drew her to you?

"You were a ninja without genjutsu or ninjutsu, and somehow through force of will you forged a path for yourself. She admired you for that, and wanted to help you, didn't she?" Shira didn't deny it. "Haku is like you. She cannot use genjutsu or ninjutsu, so taijutsu is her only way forward. I want to help her, but I'm not skilled enough at taijutsu to help her move any further forward- and neither is anyone else in the Hidden Sand. You're the only one our Lord Kazekage could think of who would be up to the challenge of this task."

Shira opened his mouth to reply, but closed it again, indecision written plain all over his face. Kame seized his chance to make a final point: "What do you think Yome would want you to do? Watch the potential of a shinobi much like you go unrealized because of her, or help the next generation like she helped you?" When Kame finished, he noticed Haku staring at him with something unreadable in her eyes. Instead of meeting her gaze, he felt himself blush a little bit and turned to hide his face.

The elder ninja at the table sighed and looked once more out the window, before turning back to the two of them. "I accept my Kazekage's wishes, then. Haku, I'll teach you everything I know before I pass from this world. Yome helped me achieve my dream, and I'll be damned if I don't help you achieve yours." Then he stood suddenly, making his way over to the refrigerator. "You two must be hungry from traveling here. We can leave for the Hidden Sand tomorrow, but for tonight you two should stay here. I'll fix us some dinner."

Kame grinned. "What are you making? I can help." He walked over to stand beside Shira in the kitchen, but stopped and rolled his eyes at the sight of a water boiler and a few packets of instant noodles.  _I can't really help with that, now can I?_  He turned around to sit back down at the table with Haku, remaining silent for the couple of minutes until Shira brought over three bowls of packaged noodles.

They were mostly done when Shira finally broke the quiet with a question. "How is Gaara these days, eh? I haven't seen him in a long time!"

Haku shifted a little in her seat. "He's… he seems to be all right. I saw him the other…" She trailed off and blushed furiously, looking away from Shira.  _That's right, the last time she saw Gaara was when she-_

Shira started to press the topic, but Kame cut him off, coming to Haku's rescue. "Lord Gaara is quite well. Things have been mostly quiet in the Hidden Sand recently, but the times I've seen him he's been as wise and kind as ever."

The chunin nodded. "That's good to hear. I always knew he'd be a good Kazekage… I don't suppose you all know anything about Rock Lee, do you? This village is pretty isolated, so I rely on travelers to get the news. Did he end up as a splendid ninja as he'd hoped?" Kame remembered the Kazekage telling him that the two taijutsu-only users of that generation had formed a bond with each other at their chunin exams.

"Yes, he-" Haku and Kame both answered at the same time, and then Haku receded and let Kame continue. "He was fairly well known, less so now. Towards the end of the Fourth Shinobi War, he- well, his master, Might Guy, fought Madara Uchiha in single combat with only taijutsu and nearly beat him."

Apparently news of the Shinobi War at least  _had_  reached this village, or at least stories of Madara Uchiha's strength, because Shira leaned back, satisfied. "He must have… wait, did he open the eighth gate?" The satisfaction was gone, replaced with concern.

Kame nodded. "Yeah, but he was able to live somehow… I don't know, there are conflicting reports on what happened."  _The Eight Inner Gates: the strongest taijutsu technique there is, but with a brutal cost,_  he recalled. "As far as I know, after that Rock Lee has operated as a successful Leaf Ninja for a long time."

Shira smiled. "Good, good." He must have been good friends with the leaf shinobi. A few moments of silence passed, and then he abruptly stood up and pointed towards a doorway beside the kitchen. "You two take the stairs up to the bedroom. I'll sleep down here."

Kame wanted to argue that they could sleep on the floor; he didn't want to impose, but Haku was already opening the door and climbing the steps. Shrugging, he followed her and made his way up the short flight of stairs up to the bedroom. Inside he saw a single large bed and two cabinets were the only furnishings.  _Okay,_ he thought,  _there's only one bed, so how are we-_

Haku was already lying in it, her pack, coat, and boots in a pile on the floor.  _Nevermind, then._  Kame spread out his bedroll on the floor and laid down, quickly disappearing into sleep devoid of the nightmare that had shaken him so much the day before.


	9. Training Arc Vol 4

**(A/N) I'd love to hear advice on my writing, no matter how negative it may be. I'm always looking to improve, so if you feel like it a review would be much appreciated!**

**Ninja Profile: Shira**

Ninjutsu: F  
Genjutsu: F  
Taijutsu: S

Description: Shira is a tall, solidly-built man whose vigor and strength haven't faded despite his old age. His once-grey hair is now white, and as a retired ninja he now wears casual shirts and pants instead of shinobi garb. His normal expression and stance radiate unconcern, even boredom.

Origin: Shira had aspired from a young age to become a ninja, but due to an inability to use Ninjutsu or Genjutsu he was bullied by his peers. However, he still gave it his all and eventually, the Fifth Kazekage noticed his struggle and paid special attention to him. After meeting with success in the chunin exams, Shira left for the northern border of the Land of Wind, seeking out a job in a special squad up there along with his squadmate Yome.

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Kame blinked his way back into the world of the waking, eyes drifting around but finally settling on the clock, which read: 10:13. He jolted awake, sitting up too fast and tripping over his bedroll.  _10:13!? I haven't slept in that late… well, since I can remember._  In the Hidden Sand, morning was heralded by noises from all directions, and since he usually had lessons scheduled an alarm would wake him if the ambient noise didn't. However, in this small border village, the morning was eerily quiet and peaceful.

When he sat up, he noticed that Haku wasn't in the bed, and her belongings were also gone. He quickly grabbed all of his own possessions and stumbled down the stairs, still blinking the grogginess away. When he entered the main room, though, it was also empty of people. Hesitantly, Kame called out as loudly as he dared, "Hey! Haku? Shira? Where are you two?"

No response. Just before he tried it again, his eyes flickered down towards the table, on top of which rested a note. Kame stepped over to it and scanned it briefly, his brow furrowing at first in confusion and then in horror at the contents:  _Kame,_  it read,  _Haku and I have decided to go on ahead since you slept in so late. You can come along whenever you wake up, catch up if you really want to go with us. -Shira._

Kame looked around him and saw that, while the house's furniture remained untouched, little details revealed that Shira had in fact moved out; a few pictures had been removed, and all of the food was gone.  _Did those… Did they seriously leave without me!?_  Now a strange combination of rage and panic set in and he rushed out the door, entering a full sprint within seconds towards the Hidden Sand.  _When I catch up to them, I'm going to let them have it._

He was so frustrated that he almost missed Haku and Shira on his right- luckily, he did notice them in time. Unluckily, his response to noticing them was to faceplant into the dirt road at full sprinting speed. Kame clawed his way back onto his feet and whipped around to see the two of them sparring in a small clearing besides the road. If they had noticed him coming, neither of them registered it.

Before he let them have it, he took a brief moment to appreciate the martial skill displayed before him. The two of them moved so quickly they were like blurs, and yet every strike was clearly targeted and executed to perfection. Back and forth the fight went, both participants getting momentary advantages, but after only a short time Kame could clearly see that Haku had the disadvantage. Her attacks were more defensive than anything, while Shira's movements were similar to how a cat acted when it was playing with its food.

Suddenly, Shira ended it with an intense flurry of blows that Haku was barely able to deflect, each one forcing her more and more out of her defensive position, and then he unleashed a final strike that stopped just short of her face. His fist, frozen an inch before its target, still carried enough wind just from its force to stagger Haku a little bit and blow her hair backwards. Kame remembered himself from just a day ago doubting Shira and laughed a little bit internally.

Haku was still dazed from the exchange, but Shira seemed to finally notice him. "Hey, Kame," he called out, waving a hand. "Glad to see you…" He snickered, "finally caught up with us!" Another barely suppressed chuckle. Kame was confused about what was so funny, until he realized that it was him. Completely out of breath from the sprint there, covered with dirt from his ungraceful nosedive, and so annoyed he was probably steaming from the ears…  _I must make a pretty ridiculous sight._

Haku recovered enough to smile and wave at him. "Kame! You were sleeping so peacefully; I didn't want to wake you." Kame may have been angry, but the rage burned out inside him at the sight of her so happy. He didn't have the heart to yell at her for accidentally helping Shira to prank him, especially not when she seemed to get along with the taijutsu master so well.

"Yeah… Well, I'm here now." Kame jerked his head towards the road. "What do you say? Deihaka-sensei's waiting for us, you know."

Haku nodded, although Kame could tell she wanted to keep sparring. "You're right, we should probably get going home now, huh?" She grabbed her pack and slung it over her shoulder, falling into step beside Kame.

Shira stepped over next to her and spoke. "Haku, I can tell that you have a lot of talent- more than Rock Lee or I had, to be completely honest. You can probably go further than either of us." Haku was clearly trying (and failing) to conceal her pride at the high praise. "However, when it comes to the basics, you clearly had a teacher who was a weapon-taijutsu specialist. My best guess is that he uses a short sword?" Kame nodded. Saitama, the taijutsu instructor at the academy,  _was_  best known for his short sword technique- although, how Shira had figured that out just from sparring against Haku, he didn't know.

Shira continued. "The problem with using weapon-type tactics as a martial fighter is that you end up wasting a lot of your mobility. When he gets knocked out of guard stance, he has to move his sword back into the correct position, which is how he taught you to use your hands. However, you're a lot more flexible than a sword- if you get knocked out of guard stance, you can come back in an instant, or better yet turn it into a counterattack." He kept going, explaining to an extreme level of detail all of the ways Haku had to improve as their little group followed the road back towards the Hidden Sand.

( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( )

When they made it back to the village at noon the next day, Shira peeled off to go greet the Kazekage in person and find lodgings, leaving Kame and Haku alone at the gate. Kame remembered that he had a puppetry lesson scheduled- Kankuro would probably expect him to be back by now. He turned to go to the Hidden Sand Armory, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him.

Kame spun around to see Haku looking flusteredly down at his feet, moving an arm up behind her head in a strangely familiar display of awkwardness. She finally spoke up, looking at him despite rapidly blushing cheeks. "Kame, I… thanks… I mean, I want to thank you for…"

He nodded. "I'm happy to do it for a friend." When he called her a friend, she seemed to briefly lose her nerve and look away like she had before.

She gathered herself again and looked back into his eyes. "No, I want to… I have to say this. Kame, I want to thank you for… for doing all of this, and for believing in me. Nobody but Gaara has ever really treated me like this, and I will make it up to you somehow, someday." Immediately after finishing, she tore her eyes away and darted off. Kame felt himself smile against his better judgement at the image- she looked so much like the girl from a few days ago in the border village who'd darted off in exactly the same way after receiving candy.

With more happiness in his stride, he took his own leave and started off towards Kankuro and his lessons. After the long journey through the Land of Wind and back, the quick trip through the Village Hidden in the Sand was easy; he found himself standing before the door to the armory in practically no time at all. The door guard glanced him over before opening it, allowing him in. A few short passageways later, and he found himself standing in the doorway to the puppet room at the exact time his lesson was slated to begin.

When he turned on the light, Kankuro was sitting in the chair, but at the sudden brightness flailed briefly before falling out of it. In milliseconds, the man was on his feet, glowering at him. "Where the hell did you come from? How about a little warning before you do that next time!?"

Kame looked down, hoping that Kankuro took it as a sign of apology rather than an attempt to hide his smile. "I'm sorry, master. I'll try to warn you before I turn on the lights in the future."

Kankuro, as if realizing the ridiculousness of his position, cleared his throat and sat back down. "Well then, Kame, let's get down to it. Were you able to find Shira?"  _Gaara must have told him the specifics of the trip,_ Kame realized.

"Yes, and he agreed to help Haku in her training."

"Good." Kankuro nodded slowly. "Now, where did we last leave off? Oh yes, you exhausted all of your chakra and wasted both of our time." Kame coughed awkwardly and failed to meet his master's eyes. "Since we agreed you're not going to do that again, if you feel like you can't manage something I ask you to do, try it another way. When you were bringing out that spike yesterday, you weren't activating the mechanism, you were literally forcing it through the mechanism and the wood, completely breaking the whole thing.

_That did seem way too hard…_  Kame nodded.  _I guess that I need an understanding of the intricacies of the puppets as well, huh?_  He tentatively responded. "Could… could I see the plans or schematics for the puppets I'm to use? I want to know the mechanisms so that I can activate the right ones."

Kankuro shook his head. "Nah, It'll be better if I just show you. I know all of these puppets inside and out." He raised the same arm Kame had been focusing on during the last class. "Now, inside of this arm is a spring that sits behind the blade, right about here." He pointed at a point about a third of the way up ts forearm. "Then there's the blade itself, which has a notch near its base. Set into the notch is a little metal lever, preventing the blade from releasing." He tossed the arm up into the air and it hung there, about four feet off of the ground. "Now, if I push with my chakra on the little lever, rather than the blade…" The blade shot out from just above the arm's hand.

Kame nodded, although he couldn't help but feel that he'd been treated a little bit unfairly. "Master… Why didn't you tell me about this before?"

Kankuro shrugged. "I wanted to see if you could figure it out for yourself- which, evidently, you couldn't."

Kame's pride stung from that one. "But, there's no visible…"

"Ah, yes, the genius idea of making the delicate, secret mechanisms of the puppets open for everyone to see." Kankuro's raised eyebrow silenced his pupil. "The puppet style, more than any other method of battle, relies on the mechanics of the puppet itself. To succeed, you need great chakra control, great battlefield awareness, and great tactical intelligence. However, to  _excel_ , you need not only to understand the puppet, but also to yourself create newer and better techniques." Kankuro reset the blade again and then set the weapon down onto the table, stepping back to allow him another try.

Kame nodded. Turning back to the puppet arm, he threw out the familiar thread of chakra to it, binding his chakra network to the receiving mark on the wood of the creation. Next, he focused himself completely on it, trying to feel the switch that he knew was there, sending little flutters of chakra like echolocation until he found what he was looking for. With a mental nudge, he pushed it back gently, and the blade sprang out!  _Yes! I am the greatest puppet master of all time! I am a prodigy!_  Although the self-praise was a bit much, he was too proud of himself to stop it.

Kankuro raised an eyebrow as if he could tell what Kame was thinking. "Okay then, now that you've managed to catch up to what Sasori could do at age 7, let's move on."  _Oh,_  Kame thought, deflating a bit. "Now listen up: Forget everything I said before, when it comes to  _moving_  the puppet, you have to brute-force it."

Kame's eyes widened a bit as Kankuro continued. "There's no springs or mechanisms for this one, you're just going to have to move them with the threads. A word of warning, though, before you go and break anything else for me to repair- When you're moving puppets, there are a few basic rules. First, you can't move the threads through anything with its own chakra network, or the threads will break. Second, never move the puppets out of your own sight. Unless you've been hiding a sensory-type jutsu specialty from me, there's no way for you to know what's happening to the puppet when it's out of your line of sight. Third, if you have threads attached to multiple body parts, make sure that whatever movements you're trying to make it execute will work with each other. If you rotate an arm upwards while moving the body to the side, you have to take into account the total movement when attempting to move the arm and change your path accordingly."

Kame nodded.  _I think I got all that,_  he thought,  _three rules: don't go through chakra networks, don't go in blind, and think about the whole body when moving things._  He refocused himself, looking forwards, and saw Kankuro crossing his arms. "Let's see you try to move the arm, Kame."  _The arm? But I could barely move the blade yesterday…_

Nevertheless, Kame gritted his teeth and signaled to the chakra thread. Remembering how much effort it had taken to move something using his willpower the day before, he gathered himself fully and  _pushed_ as hard as he could. Surprisingly, instead of resisting him like he'd thought it would, the arm went flying off diagonally upwards inches from Kankuro's face and impaling itself in the ceiling with the blade he'd never retracted.

Sheepishly, he turned to see Kankuro glaring at him. "Master… I'm sorry…"

Kankuro narrowed his eyes. "When I said brute-force it, I didn't mean… that."

"It's just that last time I had to push the blade out, it took a lot of force, so…"

His master rolled his eyes. "Did it ever occur to you that when you did that, you were forcing the blade to carve through resistant metal and wood? And that maybe, when there was only air in the way, it might go a little easier? No, wait, who am I kidding, of course it didn't." Kame frowned, still staring at the floor, but looked up a little bit at Kankuro's next words. "But… good work. I didn't expect you to be able to move it so quickly and, apparently, easily. I can move up a little bit in your tranining to full puppet use."

Kame nodded, a smile creeping over his face, as Kankuro turned to unhook one of the mannequin-type puppets and bring it down for him to bind with.

( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( )

When Kame finished that day's lessons, he had already managed to move around the larger training puppet Kankuro had finished for him.  _I still have some leftover food,_  he thought.  _Maybe I could invite Haku over to eat it with me?_  He decided to head to her house to ask her in person.

The route he took to his destination led him back through the downtown district, and uncomfortably close to the Hasagi family ramen shop. He hurried by, hoping that Tetsute would be out on a mission or training, but his hopes were dashed by a loud shout from above: "Yo, Kame! Stop right there, I want to talk to you!"

Wincing, he turned around to see not only Tetsute, but also Rakuyo making their way down from the roof of the restaurant, landing in front of him. Tetsute was out front, hands on his hips, wearing a classic smirk that Kame knew all too well on his face. "Kame, Kame, Kame…" he said the words in a patronizing voice. "You left so suddenly the other night, I didn't even get a chance to say goodbye…"

Kame rolled his eyes. He'd seen this same song and dance a thousand times, the casual lead in with sarcastic double-edged praise that Tetsute would follow up on with actual insults.  _Wait, I have seen this a thousand times…_  Kame got lost in his thoughts again.  _He did this at the academy. I was with him when he did this to other students… I laughed with him when he did this to other students! I was wrong when-_

Tetsute poked his chest. "You there, Kame? When I'm talking to you, I expect a reponse!" The last word was spoken with a full shove that knocked Kame back a few steps. He finally returned full attention to the situation at hand, looking up to see Tetsute satisfiedly smirking at him. "There we go…" Tetsute had moved on to the casual drawl that he used when talking to people who were scared of him.

Kame swallowed, mouth feeling strangely dry all of a sudden. "What do you want, Tetsute?"

Tetsute shrugged, nonplussed expression. "Well, what I want…? What I want is for you to come back, man…" He put a hand on Kame's shoulder. "Ever since you got grouped up with those losers, you've been drifting away. Even worse, you actually defended Kodoku last night." Kame opened his mouth to fight back, but then at the use of the Kodoku name he remembered something terrible.

_Kame was back at the academy, sitting with Tetsute and Rakuyo at lunch break. "This Kodoku girl, she's really something else," Tetsute drawled. "Honestly, I don't know why she hasn't quit yet. Ever since she came to the academy, she's flunked every single ninjutsu test."_

_Kame and Rakuyo smirked a little, but Tetsute shook his head at them, grinning. "No no no, you think I'm exaggerating, playing up her bad scores… but I'm dead serious. She can't cast a single jutsu!" Kame let out a little laugh at that. Did she really think she'd be able to pass?_

_Rakuyo rolled her eyes. "She's pretty good at taijutsu, though…"_

_Tetsute wouldn't hear it. "Taijutsu. Tai. Ninjutsu. Nin. Which one of those two seems more like something a nin-ja would need? Any moron can get into a fistfight, but being a ninja takes skill and mastery of jutsu. What makes her different than a common bandit?"_

_Rakuyo giggled. "The real question is, what makes her different than some drunk dude in a bar?"_

_Kame chuckled at that. "No, no, the drunk guy could still probably use more ninjutsu than she could!"_

_The three of them shared a final laugh at the expense of this girl, and then lunch break was over and the teacher was calling them back in._

Kame remembered it all now. Little mentions in passing, minor updates from Tetsute or Rakuyo about the 'Kodoku' girl's latest failure. The talks had been good for a quick laugh or to be briefly grateful that he wasn't like her, but nothing more. How could he have forgotten this?

_Rakuyo grimaced as she sat down at their usual bench, which Kame immediately picked up on. "What happened?"_

_"Oh, nothing, I just got set to spar with Kodoku today. She seriously has no self-control, huh? Just a friendly sparring match, but she went all-out on me like she had something to prove…" Rakuyo shrugged, and Kame wondered why that girl would attack her like that._

_Tetsute spoke up from Kame's other side. "She's always been that way, though… Don't you remember when we were kids- wait, no, you probably don't, your parents are nut jobs and trained you for all that time. Anyway, when I first met Kodoku, she…" At the time, Kame had been too momentarily distracted by reminder of his own early years to let Tetsute's next words sink in, but now in hindsight he could hear them clearly. "She came over and tried to show off some jutsu that she knew._

_"Thirty seconds later and she's still trying to cast it, but there's nothing happening, so I push her out of the way so I can show her how it's done. Instead of clearing out, though, she jumps on me like some kind of angry animal, and I have to defend myself and the other kids from her until my parents get there. After that, I assumed that she'd learned not to freak out on people, but if she just did it to you…"_

_Kame watched Tetsute and Rakuyo share a loaded look, and then Tetsute turned to him. "I think we need to teach her again, eh? You gonna come along, Kame?"_

_Kame shook his head. "No, I've got to get home. My parents are leaving for the border again tonight, so I want to spend some time with them. Plus," he said, smirking at them, "if you two need my help to deal with one girl who can't even use ninjutsu or genjutsu, then..."_

_Another laugh went through the group at his well-delivered insult._

"Kame."  _I did know her before! What is wrong with me!? Is there something going on with my memory!?_  "Kame."  _Why did I even help her at the graduation exam!? Did I get amnesia? How did I go from laughing at her to seeing who she really was overnight?_  "Kame!" The third repetition of his name was accompanied by a shove that landed him painfully on his ass. Tetsute stood over him, glaring daggers as anger finally made it into his voice. "What the hell has been up with you lately, Kame? You've been ignoring me all the time, you keep staring off into space for no reason, and you actually started rolling around in the dirt with Kodoku and company!"

Kame tried to get it together, still reeling from his memories. "I… I don't really know… I forgot how much we used to…"  _bully people_ , he wanted to say, but couldn't force the words out.

Tetsute took his stilted half-sentence the wrong way. "We used to be friends. We used to agree that people like Loverboy and Kodoku didn't belong at the academy and sure as hell didn't belong among the Sand Shinobi. I really think teaming up with those losers is having a terrible influence on you, man."

Rakuyo joined in. "Are you honestly going to say that she wouldn't be a liability? What happens when you're in a battle and she gets hit with a genjutsu? Now what? The enemy has a prisoner and you have to either let her die or compromise her mission. Her dropping out would probably be for the best not just for you, but for her as well."

Kame recovered enough to think fully, and as he considered the situation he realized what he had to do.  _Tetsute and Rakuyo… they think that by trying to break up our team, they're saving me,_  he thought.  _As long as they're sure in that purpose, nothing is going to stop them from keeping up with their constant attempts. Maybe if I just go along with it… maybe the real me is the one that they know…_

'I swear to save Haku.' His words from the Kazekage's office cleared his mind. _I can't abandon her now; I'll never forgive myself. If Tetsute and Rakuyo think they can save me, then I have to make them realize that I don't want to be saved._  Kame looked up into the waiting eyes of Tetsute and then chuckled a little bit. "Wow, look at you two, saving me, such cool heroes…"

Tetsute's eyes narrowed as Kame rose to his feet, dusting all of the dust and sand from his pants. "We're not…"

"Oh, get off of your high horse, Tetsute." Kame leaned back a little more casually, crossing his arms. "I don't need you to save me because I'm completely fine. Although, to be honest, now I'm a little worried about you if you get this upset when a friend stops hanging out with you." Tetsute started to say something back but Kame didn't stop. "I just got tired of dealing with you two whining constantly about your classmates. There's only so much insecurity I can take, and the endless complaining about how you two were 'big, strong ninja who couldn't stand to be around the lesser creatures' pushed me past my limit.

"Have you ever stopped to think about how pathetic it makes you seem to care that much about how you look? To actually attack other students because you don't want them to make you look bad?" Kame rolled his eyes, secretly hoping that this tirade would break whatever strange hold he had on them. "I don't want to be on a team with you two. I would rather be on a team with Kodoku than you two, because ironically, she's the one who is less self-conscious about her abilities." Not strictly true, but it should get Tetsute mad enough to…

Yep. Tetsute's face was flushed with rage and his hand twitched towards the kunai pouch on his waist. "Kame, you… what part of insecure… why…" For once, the ever-confident genin had no comeback. Kame worried for a moment that he may have overdone it when Tetsute grabbed a kunai and half-stepped forwards; I don't know if I can take on both of them at once… but the point was moot because the other boy simply snarled and turned around to walk away, wordlessly followed by Rakuyo.

_I think that's the last I'm going to see of them,_  thought Kame with more remorse than he'd realized.  _Huh. As much as their actions disgust me now, I guess they were still my friends for a very long time…_  He let himself be sad for a moment, but soon the part of him that mourned their friendship had drifted to the back of his mind. By the time he found himself standing before the steps leading up to Haku's home, all traces of Tetsute and Rakuyo were gone from his mind.

Midway up the steps, he started to hear the sounds of battle, small impacts and quick feet against the sandy ground. Hurrying up the rest of the steps, upon cresting the top of the hill he realized what it was- Shira and Haku were at it again, sparring at the same blinding speed they'd had yesterday. However, this time the fight was just a little bit more even. Haku was still at a deficit, but now she was managing actual offense. In fact, he could see her putting Shira's advice from yesterday into her techniques; instead of trying to return to defense every time he landed a blow she chained her movements together and flowed around him.

This time, their match ended when Haku noticed Kame and stopped, with Shira pausing briefly before dropping his stance as well. She waved at him as she jogged over, smiling and asking, "What brought you over here, Kame?"

"Uh… It was…" Wait, what was I over here for? I knew when I left Kankuro, but then… "Umm…" Kame furiously tried to remember. I was going to… oh, yeah! "I was going to ask if you wanted to come and eat at my place? I mean, do you have any dinner plans?"

Haku shook her head. "No, I was just going to eat some more… it doesn't matter. I'll totally eat with you."

Before Kame could finish the conversation, a new voice came from behind him. "Hey, guys, long time no see!"  _Not long enough,_  Kame thought, as Miriki lifted himself up onto the plane, followed by Deihaka. Miriki continued in the same 'greeting a distant relative' tone: "Me and Deihaka-sensei have made some real progress!" He glanced at Shira briefly. "And I see that you guys found Haku her trainer, I'm glad I could help with that."

"What." Miriki had been late that day and hadn't seen them since.

"Well, if I hadn't had the good judgement to show up late, then you guys wouldn't have had all that time to decide on finding this Shira guy." Miriki was grinning from ear to ear despite the ridiculous things he was saying.

Deihaka must have noticed Kame readying a withering verbal assault, because he hurriedly stepped in between the two genin and changed the subject. "Anyway, we're here because I want to have a team dinner to catch up. I'm buying."

Haku immediately agreed. "That's cool, me and Kame were already gonna eat together so we might as well make it a Team Eight thing…"

Kame sighed. "Sure, why not."

The jonin smiled. "Excellent, then let's go. Does anyone have any problem with going to Fukagaki's?" The restaurant in question was middle-end, had decent food, was owned by a nice retired shinobi, and most importantly was very far away from the Hasagi ramen shop.

"That sounds great!" Kame said, along with Haku and Miriki voicing their own support. Deihaka started down the steps, followed by Kame's two teammates, but before he could go he heard Shira speak behind him.

"Kame, do you know why I came back to this village?"

_Oh crap, I forgot about him…_  Kame was ashamed for not thinking about Haku's teacher's dinner plans, and forgot what the question was. "What?"

Shira sighed. "I came here because you reminded me of Yome."

_Where is this coming from?_  So far, half of his interactions with Shira had consisted of the older ninja messing with him. "Thanks…?"

Shira could clearly tell how awkward Kame felt. "You don't have to thank me… And I didn't mean anything having to do with you as a person, your personality and hers couldn't be more different. But when I look at what you do, and how much you want to help Haku, I can see Yome's kindness in your heart. Don't let this shinobi world take that away from you." Shira let out a long sigh, and then rolled his eyes. "Wow, I really am getting old. That sounded like something my grandmother would say… You'd better go catch up to your team."

Kame glanced behind himself instinctively. When he turned back to say goodbye to Shira, the man was already gone, leaving Kame to run off. Even as Kame caught up to the others, though, his head was still spinning from Shira's words.


	10. Training Arc Vol 5

**(A/N) Why are all of the Fairy Tail theme songs so good. _Snow Fairy_  is the best song ever.**

**Ninja Profile: Gunaji Kokuseki**

Ninjutsu: B  
Taijutsu: B  
Genjutsu: C  
Specialties: Stone Bond, Accuracy, Long Range

Description: Gunaji is a Valley genin of average height and build, who wears his sandy-brown hair cut short. His bright blue eyes are always scanning for things he can use to his advantage, and his posture is very rarely relaxed. He almost always wears the Valley Shinobi vest on his chest and headband around his forehead, but stands out from other ninja due to the large container he carries on his back, full of stone he's always looking to improve.

Origin: Gunaji is from the Kokuseki clan, a minor family within the Village Hidden in the Valleys (their status is comparable to the Nara clan in terms of notoriety and respect). From a young age, he was always looking to make his clan's modest Stone Bond Jutsu into something as formidable as the legendary Sharingan of the leaf or Kekkeitota of the Stone. He became a ninja in order to hone his mastery of it and improve upon it further and further, and hopes to make the Kokuseki clan's name into stuff of legend.

( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( )

"Here you go!" Fukagaki came over with a few platters of food, giving each member of team eight what they'd ordered. Kame and Deihaka had ordered sashimi, Haku had asked for ramen, and Miriki had gotten a salad. The gathered ninja all took a second to enjoy the sight and smell of their food before digging into it. Kame froze briefly when he saw Haku beside him devouring her ramen at lightning speed, which sent a pang of sadness through him.  _She must be subconsciously afraid of getting kicked out…_

"Hey, Fukagaki-san! Can I get another one?"  _Or maybe she's just hungry._  The old shopowner smiled craftily and Deihaka paled slightly.  _But shouldn't he be able to afford- wait, are jonin paid more than lower-ranking ninja?_  Kame wondered if Deihaka got paid extra for taking on a squad of genin. Ninja in the Hidden Sand were paid amounts calculated off of the difficulty of mission completed. As a result, higher ranks tended to get paid more, because their missions were A-B rank as opposed to genins' C-D rank missions. Bounties were different, a single-sum amount based upon the rank of missing-ninja captured that several lands would pool in for.

Kame thought he knew why Deihaka was so annoyed by his teaching job. "Deihaka-sensei, since you took us on as your pupils, are you getting paid for D-ranks like a rank genin?"

Deihaka looked at him crabbily. "No, but I'm sure as hell not getting paid as much as I used to. Teaching a genin squad is treated as an extended B-Rank mission, so I'm getting paid for that- as opposed to my normal A-Rank or higher. So yeah, I'm having to cut back on the-" he coughed a little bit and reoriented himself. "I mean, I love teaching! I can't get drunk, I can't sleep in, I have to make less money, I'm always worried that I'm gonna teach you the wrong thing, but the..." He visibly forced a smile. "'Joy of Teaching' makes up for it all!" He broke down laughing hysterically.

Then there was an awkward silence, until Fukagaki returned with the second bowl she'd ordered as if he'd known that she'd order it ahead of time. Deihaka took the opportunity to clear his throat and then speak again, on a saner note this time. "Well, team eight, all of you are gathered here, so I have a question. Are you confident in your abilities?"

Kame took a moment to think about that one. "Well, I… It depends on what metric-"

"Yes!" Miriki talked right over him. "I'm totally confident in my abilities. I've earned an A-plus on  _every_  mission I've been on-"  _He's only been on one mission._ "I finally got my Hatogan stage one unlocked, and I know two different jutsu now!"

Deihaka nodded and turned to Haku. She started a little bit, as if she was confused that he meant her, before responding. "I'm… I think I can probably take on another mission, if that's what you mean. My taijutsu is improving and Shira-sensei said he would think of some new and better ways for me to use my lightning stance… and also teach me something called the Seven Heavens?"

Kame decided to contribute his opinion before Deihaka would ask. "I'm confident that I can do better than before. My puppet jutsu lessons are coming along and my Gale Force Jutsu is down to three seconds of charge-up time."

Deihaka nodded, briefly seeming to think something over, and then turned back to them again. "You all have only been on one mission, but it was at least B-rank and you all held your own. I think… I think you all may be ready."

"For what?" Kame said, thinking  _get to the point already, Deihaka-sensei._

"For the chunin exams."  _What!?_ Kame was shocked.  _We went up against three chunin and I almost died… well, I guess I did take one of them out… but-_  "Don't get me wrong, I don't expect any of you to pass, but I'm making an Executive Teacher Decision that the chunin exams will maybe probably be a good learning experience…" Kame would have been a lot less nervous if his sensei had said that with a little more confidence and without the words Executive Teacher Decision.  _He's a lot more inexperienced than he lets on._

Haku's ramen arrived and she started to dig into it, but with an air of desperation Deihaka resumed his speaking. "But anyway, I spoke to Senshiko and she's entering her genin, so I guess it can't hurt for me to do it, too… Besides, the exams might be dangerous, but usually the deaths are kept to a minimum… plus it's a good chance for you all to scope out the top competition from your generation…"

Miriki nodded sagely. "Yes, this seems like a great opportunity to scope out the… competition… I'm sure that there are many gir- I mean, kunoichi that will be a great challenge."  _Oh My God, is my chance to participate in the chunin exams going to end up being Miriki's wingman while he hits on our entire generation of genin!?_  Kame watched his dreams of intense competition, difficult challenges, and eventual victory through ingenuity and wit fall apart, replaced by the sight of Miriki being swarmed by girls.

Haku tentatively raised a hand before she spoke. "I… I would like to have another couple of days to train with Shira-sensei… if that's all right?"

Deihaka nodded. "Yeah, it is. You can actually have a couple of weeks, in fact. The chunin exams aren't for another month, and we  _will_  take on a few missions before they start, but I just wanted to get a quick snapshot of all of your skills." He turned to Kame. "I also want you to start coming to our morning lessons again if you really have fully learned the Gale Force Jutsu. I have one more that I want to teach you, and you can keep practicing the Gale Force Jutsu until you've mastered it. That goes for you too, Haku, except with you I want to practice… something else."

Haku nodded as the last traces of her second bowl disappeared into her mouth, then started to turn around towards Fukagaki. Before she could order another bowl, Deihaka was waving the man over and pulling out his wallet.

( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( )

"This is pretty boring," Miriki complained to the rest of the team. They were walking alongside a merchant's cart, which caused them to move a lot slower than their normal traveling. A simple escort mission to a nearby town was probably going to cost them the entire day.

Deihaka tried to improve their spirits. "Look, not all ninja work is fighting epic battles and saving the day, okay? We all have to start somewhere."

Miriki sighed dramatically. "But this job could probably be taken by non-ninja. Why are we- and more importantly, an A-class jonin like you- wasting time on this crap?"

Deihaka opened and closed his mouth without any sound a few times, finally conceding the point. "I… you know, I don't want to walk miles on end next to a wagon either. I'm not going to defend the system, I'm just here to make sure that you follow it."

Kame, on the other hand, was finding a lot of happiness in the peace of mind that came with this mission. His mind was free to brainstorm as much as it wanted while his feet went on autopilot, and he had a few theories that he was definitely going to to test out when he got home. The walk also proved a chance for him to strengthen his puppet movement, as floating beside him was a large chunk of spare wood that Kankuro had slapped a seal on and given him. By now, his chakra control and reserves were strong enough that holding the wood in place wasn't taxing him to any dangerous lengths.

It had been two weeks since they'd decided on going into the chunin exams, and Kame was making sure to make the most out of every day. When he wasn't working with Kankuro or Deihaka, he was practicing puppetry, ninjutsu, or both.  _If I improve enough, maybe Master will even let me take Crow to the chunin exams!_  It was a pretty great thought.

Deihaka was helping him whittle down the Gale Force Jutsu charging time, but was also teaching him another technique: the Wind Barrier Jutsu. It was surprising to Kame the difference between knowing and mastering a Jutsu; he'd managed to cast the Wind Barrier Jutsu on his first attempt but to sustain and control it was another matter entirely. While he'd been training, Miriki and Haku were no less busy. Miriki was practicing Water style, which was a pretty poor tactical move considering that the odds of Sand shinobi being in a battleground with a ready supply of the necessary water were pretty low. Haku, on the other hand, wasn't learning any jutsu at all. Instead, she spent her practice time with Deihaka training her dodging instincts and learning how to evade ninjutsu attacks. Deihaka's highly malleable iron sand was excellent for mimicking various elemental attacks, and she was improving by the day.

During those two weeks, they'd also been on several missions. There were none at the level of their first one, and quite a few that were frankly insulting. Escorts were the most common, but there was also a scattering of other jobs, many of which subverted the Kazekage's screening process to ensure that genin weren't given nanny chores as jobs. Often they'd be disguised or phrased interestingly, like one old woman who'd asked for a squad of genin to watch a prisoner. When they arrived, they found that the prisoner in question was her grandchild, and they they'd been tricked into being babysitters for an afternoon. Genin work was amazingly easy.

Of the four times they'd been called to provide armed escorts, none of their subjects had been attacked.  _That might just be because the attacks were called off when they saw the ninja,_  Kame theorized. Then he looked around and scratched off that theory.  _Miriki looks stupid, me and Deihaka probably just look bored, and Haku doesn't have any visible weapons or ninja tools. Nobody's calling off an attack because of us… then again, these merchants have been pretty scared, so maybe we do look tough!_  Kame puffed out his chest a little bit, imagining bandits running off at the mere sight of him.

At that moment, in a feat of irony that couldn't possibly just be coincidental, a large group of angry men dressed in black came charging out of the treeline. A couple of arrows whizzed by, but any that would have hit the cart or the people around it were stopped by Deihaka's iron sand. The merchant yelped in fear and ducked inside his cart, yelling out to the ninja, "This is what I paid you for! Get them!"

Kame wondered why they'd failed to notice the bandits, before realizing that the enemies were actually hundreds of feet away and not closing the distance very fast.  _Wow, these guys are dumb,_ he thought.  _Do they think that they'll manage to win against us from a distance?_  He rapidly folded together a straight-flying paper airplane, took aim… and then dropped his arm.  _Damn, they're out of range_. While the paper airplanes were great as a way to get a huge amount of destructive power with a decent amount of control for no chakra cost whatsoever, they did have very limited range.

_Well then, I guess I'll just have to close the gap_. Kame started to rush forward, performing the handsigns he'd been learning before and channeling his chakra in a swirling pattern around him. Envisioning the pure wind cutting through all before it, his chakra gusted into the physical world as a twisting column of air surrounding him. "Wind Barrier Jutsu!"

He continued his charge, and as the bandits turned to face him, their arrows were knocked aside by the tornado. "What the hell- these shinobi are somethin' else!" he heard one of them mutter, which brought a little grin of pride to his face. Once he was within thirty meters of the attackers, he saw them drop the bows and draw weapons for close-quarters. That left him open to use his weaponry, so he dismissed his Wind Barrier (not a moment too soon; that thing drained a  _lot_  of chakra). Seeing the angry bandits closing on him fast, he whipped out two paperbombs and tossed them to the earth in front of him, then readied and threw two more paper airplanes.

For once, the enemy didn't seem to realize what the airplanes did and took them to be ordinary projectile attacks.  _Well, I guess that's that,_  thought Kame as he made the snake seal and detonated the planes right in the middle of the enemy force. Cries of anguish came from the resulting smoke cloud, but Kame didn't let down his guard.  _Those bombs were made with less chakra than normal, designed to shock and injure rather than kill._

He wanted to disable as many of the bandits as possible without killing them. They hadn't technically harmed him, so he wasn't sure that it was morally right to execute them.  _Besides, if I can spare them and I don't, then I killed someone who was weaker than me just because I wanted to,_ Kame thought.  _And I know I don't want to be that kind of person._

His overconfidence cost him again, though, when three of them came charging out from within the smoke without a mark on them.  _How!?_  Kame had to dart backwards and blow his preliminary defenses, the two paperbombs he'd laid on the ground earlier taking out all three of them. Slightly shaken, he now watched the smoke closely, and as it began to clear out, he saw the walls of earth that had sprung into being and protected the bandits. Most of them had escaped the blasts completely, although an unlucky few who'd been just outside the wall's protection had been downed.

Kame took a quick count of the thieves. There were three on the ground before him, three that had been taken out in the initial blast, and an additional seven left standing. One of the seven, a burly man, was dressed in browns rather than the blacks of the others and had their hands in a sign. When they released it, the walls crumbled away to dust.  _Did they hire a shinobi? That must be why the Hidden Sand has been getting so many escort requests lately…_

The man shouted, "Crushing Boulder Jutsu!" Kame, at the last minute, noticed the shadow of something above him. A quick glance skyward revealed that the man had summoned a large chunk of stone a few feet above him, forcing him to find a way to escape.  _Alright then, let's do it._  He dropped one of his Windbombs behind him with one hand, and then reached out to the wooden slab still attached to him via chakra thread.  _Substitution!_  He swapped places with the wood, which was promptly crushed by the boulder, sending a brief shudder through him when he imagined himself getting caught there. Now ten feet away from where he'd stood, he smirked and made the snake seal.

The Windbomb he'd dropped imploded, but since it was pinned between a literal rock and a hard place all of the force was shunted into the easier to move of the two. The boulder was launched back towards its summoner, who growled in anger and made another sign, dismissing the stone into harmless sand. As he was pelted with the dust fragments, he made the mistake of covering his eyes and turning away a little. That was all Haku needed.

Team Eight's kunoichi swept through the bandits before they could even react, only stopping to become fully visible for the few moments where her fist was swinging forward into the jutsu user's stomach. The blow sank deep into his body and then launched him backwards with an audible snapping noise, sending him flyinb back a good twenty feet before he rolled to a stop.  _Well, that one's going to leave a mark,_  thought Kame.  _I think that this fight's over._

The remaining six bandits finally seemed to realize what was going on, turning around far too slowly and seeing their ace in the hole flattened. Haku took a threatening step towards them and they immediately folded faster than Kame's paperbombs, falling to the ground in fetal positions and begging for their lives.

Now that the threat was gone, Deihaka stepped away from guarding the cart and walked up to the bandits on the ground. He grabbed the closest one by the hair and lifted them up, all traces of his normal, awkward self gone. "Who else is there? How many people are in your little group?" Even his voice was harsher now.  _Is this his personality in battle? I didn't really get to talk with him last time…_ Kame wondered if all the eccentric jonin he'd heard or read about had a serious side.

The bandit, visibly quivering, said, "N- N- Nobody, it's j- just us, I swear!"

Deihaka grunted, dropping the man and turning around to face his team. "Okay, gather what restraints you can and tie them up, we're gonna take them in." Kame nodded and reached into his pack. Although the recommended ninja tools consisted only of a bare minimum of flash paper, kunai, and shuriken, he was never one to hit the bare minimum. After digging through his spare clothing, extra rations, medical kit, spare flash paper, and journal, he finally located the length of rope and lifted it out triumphantly.

He handed it to Deihaka, who quickly cut it into shorter pieces and bound all twelve of the captured bandits. For the larger jutsu user, he visibly put two fingers over the man's throat and then shook his head, stepping back. Haku was beside him in an instant, looking at him worriedly. "Deihaka-sensei? What's wrong, why aren't you binding that one?" Her tone of voice reminded Kame of when his younger self would ask his parents why they were leaving, knowing full well the reason but wanting to ignore it.  _I guess if I were the one... if I'd just killed my first person, I don't know how I'd react._

Deihaka looked away from her sadly. "He's… he'd dead, Haku."

She didn't seem to register the words for a few seconds, but after they sank in she looked down at the body, blinking rapidly and slowing her breathing. Kame looked away, not knowing what to do or say. In the end, it was Miriki who walked up to her and put a hand on her shoulder. "Haku, that's not you."  _What the hell is he talking about?_  Kame noticed his eyes had changed; the pupils had been replaced with a three-pronged star that stretched across his bright blue irises.

Whatever he said seemed to work, because Haku visibly calmed down a little bit and stepped back from the corpse. She walked back towards the cart, and Miriki followed her.  _Are we just going to leave the body here?_  Kame didn't really understand who cleaned up after battles, especially little skirmishes like this one. ' _Clean up'? What am I talking about, this is a corpse of another human, I'm not going to leave it to rot in the sun._  Deihaka walked to the cart with the others, but Kame stayed put. "Guys, I'm going to bury this… umm… I'll catch up, okay?"

Deihaka shrugged. "Make sure that you grab his headband first, though. He might be a missing-ninja, so if Haku want to... claim the... bounty..." He trailed off as he read the situation.  _I think I'll take the headband anyway,_  Kame thought.  _Even if Haku doesn't want it, it'll do some good for families of this guy's victims if they can get some peace of mind._  Then he chuckled a little bit.  _Plus, money is money._

As the other walked off, Miriki didn't even turn around, but Kame saw Haku glance at him with gratitude in her eyes. He turned back the task he'd assigned himself and winced. The man was even bigger up close- luckily, he had a plan for this. He grabbed a kunai and started to dig, making it about three feet deep until he figured it would be enough. Reaching into his pack, he removed three normal-strength bombs and dropped them in, then backed away a good distance and detonated them. A huge plume of earth and dirt shot into the sky, raining down all around the blast point. When he stepped forward to further inspect his handiwork, he saw that a five-foot-wide, four-foot-deep hole had been opened.

The rest of it went by quickly. After grabbing the scratched headband inside the man's pocket, he rolled the body over into the hole as best as he could, then kicked all of the dirt surrounding the grave back into it. While the job wasn't perfect and there was still a depression in the earth, it was as good as it was going to get.  _Rest in peace,_ Kame thought.  _Wait, am I supposed to say that? Should I be mourning him?_  He hurried off to catch up to the team before he could get any more morally confused.

( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( )

"Okay, now stab with the right arm." Kame twitched the correct finger and Crow's arm swung forward as the blade emerged, stabbing into the stomach of the training dummy. "Good, now left." Another finger, another swing. "Poisoned Needle." Kame thought for a split second before sending a flutter of chakra to Crow's head, opening the mouth and releasing a needle that whizzed forward and plunged into the neck of the dummy. "Okay, now roll backwards while stabbing with both arms."  _What?_  Kame did his best to roll backwards while maintaining the chakra threads and ordering Crow to attack, but it proved to be too much. While upside-down during the roll he moved the arms the wrong way and Crow simply swiped behind itself.

To add insult to injury, focusing too much on the puppet caused Kame to ungracefully flop out onto his back instead of rolling. Kankuro raised an eyebrow at the display of awkwardness, and Kame hurriedly got up and reattached himself to Crow. Before he could try again, though, his master stopped him.

"Kame, it's late, and you have to depart for the chunin exams tomorrow. Go home, eat, sleep. Another hour of practice won't make any real difference."  _I can't believe it. Tomorrow, we leave for the… wait, in that case-_

He glanced at Crow before he could stop himself. Kankuro clearly noticed it, but just stood there, arms crossed, waiting. Kame cleared his throat a little bit, gathering up the nerve to make his request: "Master, can I take- I mean, may I please take Crow to the chunin exams?" He looked down at Kankuro's feet, waiting for a response, but flicked his gaze upwards curiously at the sound of laughter.

Kankuro was laughing at him, and laughing  _hard_. Kame could feel his face blushing red as his master wheezed out a few words in between laughs. "You… take Crow… to the…" he dissolved back into laughter. Kame could only stand there and wait for what seemed like forever, until the jonin wiped a few tears from his eyes and seemed to recover enough to make a coherent sentence. "No, you can't  _take Crow to the chunin exams_ …"

Sensing another fit of laughter, Kame interjected in his own defense. "Why not? It's not like you'll be using it!"

Kankuro snorted. "And with your level of proficiency, neither will you!" Another round of laughing, and Kame gritted his teeth in frustration.  _I'm not that bad… I mean, I couldn't handle rolling while double attacking, but when am I ever going to do that in a…_ He remembered the fight a few days ago, when he'd had to roll backwards and drop a paperbomb at the same time.

"Fine." Kame shook his head, trying not to feel bitter.

"Look, Kame," Kankuro said, "It's not an insult to you or your skills. I just honestly feel that, right now, in a real fight, Crow would  _decrease_  your chances of winning. You're just not at the level required to make the chakra and attention costs worth it."  _I know that,_ thought Kame. "But… I talked with your squad leader about you entering the chunin exams, and his explanation of it being a chance for you to practice did change my mind slightly. When I was a genin, the chunin exams were cutthroat, but I understand things have… loosened up a little bit since then."

Kame nodded along, unsure where his master was going with this. Kankuro's eyes briefly drifted off in remembrance of something, but then snapped back to the subject at hand. "So… oh, yeah. If you are to practice against other ninja, I want you to see what the basics of puppet jutsu feel like, at least. That's why I put together a new puppet for the task."

Kankuro turned around and picked up a moderately-sized object from the workbench behind him. When it was brought into the light, Kame could see it more clearly: It was small, maybe one foot from end to end, and had a curving body that ended with a larger head carved to look like an insect's, with pincers and a hole where the mouth was. Two wings extended from the back, two pairs bent wooden legs ending in metal blades were embedded in the front, and its tail ended in a larger metal blade. "This is Wasp," Kankuro said proudly.

He went on to explain all of Wasp's details and hidden weapons. A mechanism within the body fed needles to a launcher in the mouth. The legs could be fired off as weapons but not controlled separately, as they were too small to accommodate the necessary chakra receptors. The wings would act as stabilizers to keep it from accidentally flipping or getting flung away.

Kame swallowed as he looked at the thing.  _It's not what I imagined, but…_  he thought about it for a few seconds before letting himself smile widely. "Thanks, master!" He accepted the Wasp and broke it down into its component parts to help with moving it, before leaving for his home.  _I can make this work…_

When he woke up the next morning, neither packing his things nor a quick breakfast helped settle his riled nerves. He stuffed a few new ninja tools into his new pack, all bought with the ransom money that Haku hadn't wanted. The man she'd killed was called Korisa the Boulder, a D-Rank missing ninja who'd never passed the chunin exams and had left the Hidden Stone Village after his fourth failure. He'd popped up around the lands, working as a mercenary-for-hire, and had killed a few people in the process. Haku had brightened up a little bit at that, perhaps alleviating some of the moral weight from her shoulders.

After one last check to make sure he had everything, including the component parts of Wasp, he walked downstairs to see his parents there. "Come here, son!" His father opened his arms for a hug, which Kame gave him, then his mother joined in. After a few moments, his dad pushed him back to smile and meet his gaze. "I'm so proud of you, heading off to the chunin exams only months after becoming a genin!"

Kame futilely tried to keep the blood from rushing to his cheeks. "Thanks, dad." In that moment, he briefly forgot the butterflies in his stomach, but after leaving his house they returned in force.  _The chunin exams... there's a reason that people treat chunin and genin so differently. Sure, the mortality rate has gone down with the years, but young ninja have gotten significantly stronger. With the ninja wars gone, people can afford to spend more time teaching children the basics and letting them forge their own style, rather than prepare them for combat before they're even fifteen. The villages have shared far more information, which means that education everywhere has improved. That means that my chunin exams will..._ a chill ran down his spine.  _I might have a more difficult time of it than Naruto, Sasuke, and Gaara did._

His anxiety ran more and more rampant, eating away at the false confidence that had been there the previous night at Kankuro's workshop. For once, he walked to the team meeting place rather than running. Upon his arrival, Deihaka, Miriki, and Haku were all already there, having shown up early. When they saw him, their shouted greetings were the things that finally got rid of his nervousness.


	11. Chunin Exams Arc Vol 1

**Ninja Profile: Sagino Kokuseki**

Ninjutsu: B  
Genjutsu: D  
Taijutsu: B  
Specialties: Stone Bond, Resilience, Stamina

Description: Sagino stands taller than most girls her age, built more solidly too. She wears the normal grey vest of a Valley shinobi over a grey shirt and shorts. Her sandy brown hair is long and messy, and she shares the same bright blue eyes as her sibling, Gunaji. Her attitude of general annoyance is prevalent in her mannerisms and voice, but when she's happy it goes away.

Origin: Since her childhood, Sagino wanted to live a normal, happy life and settle down to a normal job. However, as she grew, her brother Gunaji focused intensely on life as a shinobi, and worry for him caused Sagino to follow him into that life. As she grew more and more skilled as a ninja, she scared off most of the boys in her village, while simultaneously garnering more and more support from her clan on this new course. As time dragged on, she eventually gave in and accepted that her future would be to follow her brother along the path of the shinobi.

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Kame's first thought upon entering the Village Hidden in the Leaves was,  _Is this really all there is to it?_  Honestly, on the several-day-long journey over, he'd probably been building it up it in his mind- no, the overselling had started a long time ago, when he'd first begun reading about Naruto Uzumaki.  _I'd been preparing myself to deal with a bit of disappointment, but… I mean, come on._ The Village Hidden in the Sand looked a hundred times more… well… powerful. The Leaf had a small border wall far outside the actual village as its only visible defense.

_Then again, we did lose an offensive war to them,_ Kame considered.  _I think I'm going to keep an eye out as to how that happened._ His attentions were yanked back to the task at hand by a middle-aged woman approaching them with intent in her stride. As she got closer, he got a better look at her. She was blonde, her hair in four sections flaring out behind her head, and had a huge fan on her back.

_Oh, it's Lord Kazekage's sister. Temari?_  Kame had only heard stories about the other sibling of Lord Gaara before, as she'd moved to the Leaf long before he'd been born. Was she greeting the incoming team because of her past with the Sand? As she closed the last couple of steps, she waved a hand at them and smiled. "Hey, Deihaka and Deihaka's genin."

Miriki got a mischievous look on his face that spoke volumes about what he was about to try to do. Kame briefly remembered that Temari had moved to the Leaf because of a  _marriage_  and elbowed his teammate to prevent him from flirting with the sister of the Kazekage. Before Miriki could make another attempt, Deihaka replied to her with a familiarity that belied some history he hadn't told them. "Hey, Temari. It's been a while, eh?"

She nodded. "Yeah… I was wondering if you were going to show up to the exams. You were slated to get here yesterday."

Deihaka froze. "Is today not the fifteenth?"

Temari shook her head. "No, it's the sixteenth." A slow smile crept across her face at Deihaka's rapidly widening eyes. "But, that still gives you… thirteen minutes to show up before the chunin exams start." Deihaka stood completely frozen, paling rapidly, and Kame wondered if maybe he'd had a heart attack. Temari, still smiling widely, jerked her head towards a large building at the end of the long street. "Go on, you can make it. Probably."

Deihaka finally seemed to get back to reality and wheezed out, "Executive Teacher Decision! Go. Go! Go!" He sprinted off in the other direction, followed immediately by Haku. Kame shrugged before chasing after him as well, leaving Miriki to decide whether he wanted to participate in the exam or in the Hidden Leaf dating scene.

When they reached the building, Deihaka didn't even slow, charging straight through the doorway panting like a madman. By the time Kame caught up, he'd already filled out two pages of a four-page document. He finished the other two in a matter of seconds and then slammed it in front of Kame. "Sign… here… please…"

Kame did as he was told, a little bit put off by Deihaka's reaction.  _Then again, if I was in charge of a squad of genin and missed an entire day… I don't think I'd take it very well, either._  After Haku signed, Miriki came through the door and gave his own signature, brooding in annoyance. Deihaka all but threw the papers at the poor receptionist, snatched a small pile of three cards, and handed them to the three genin before pointing them to a flight of stairs. "Okay, here's your testing identification numbers. You all are great and I believe in you, blah blah blah, now go!"

The team eight genin shared a glance at each other before starting up the steps. As they walked away, Miriki muttered under his breath but loud enough for Kame to hear, "Gee, thanks for the encouraging words, sensei."

At the end of the stairs was a large door to their right with a sign that said "Chunin Exams" over it. Kame, somehow having ended up in front of the other two, started forwards toward it, but then froze in hesitation.  _After this, it's all-out competition against ninja from other lands. There's no more room for training or messing up. I'm… Can I really do this? What if-_

Miriki tapped him on the shoulder, stepping forward with the three-pointed star in his eyes. "Relax, Kame, we're going to be fine. You aren't going to fail and even if you do, it won't be an embarrassment for the whole village." Kame felt himself flush at the comforting words from someone who annoyed him so much and, anxious to escape the situation, pushed open the door.

Inside the room sat a large number of groups of people, seemingly clumped up by nation. Turning over to the Hidden Sand side, Kame felt a rush of mixed emotions as he recognized one of the teams: Tetsute, Rakuyo, and Genji were leaning against the wall, with the former looking at him with derision. There were two more teams from the sand, but they were composed of older generation genin that Kame didn't know at all.

"Hey, Miriki!"  _Oh, no, please…_  Keikiro was smiling and waving from the center of the room, sitting next to her teammates Gunaji and Sagino.  _So the Valley sent their genin like Deihaka said they would._ Rather than watch Miriki slide over and flirt with her, Kame scanned the rest of the room briefly, looking for clan crests that he could recognize. There were seemingly only minor ones that he didn't know, until his eyes made it to the corner of the room with the Leaf shinobi.

Standing in a group of three were genin bearing the Uchiha, Hyuga, and Namikaze clan crests.  _That's… all three, on one team!?_  Kame tried not to stare, but the Uchiha noticed his glance and turned to face him with cold eyes. She was maybe a little shorter than he was, clad in red kunoichi wear and with long dark hair and eyes.  _Is this the heir to the Leaf's most infamous clan?_

Their silent staring contest broke down when a door at the other end of the room slammed open just as the door on the near side slammed shut. In the doorway stood a tired-looking man wearing what looked like Leaf jonin uniform, if Kame remembered correctly. He took in the room, eyes lingering briefly on the Uchiha's squad, and then drawled out in a lazy voice, "Okay, applicants, it's time for the written exam. Come on in here and take the seat with your number, and then I can explain how it'll work."

He stepped aside to reveal what looked like a massive classroom, with several long rows of desks and chairs all facing a front blackboard. Lines of ninja wearing Leaf chunin clothing spread across the left and right walls, each of which held a clipboard. The various genin shuffled through the door, and Kame watched Haku and Miriki take their seats, finding himself the one with his number, 99, on it. It was in the far left and back in the corner. After everyone had found their spots, the man continued. "My name is Shikadai Nara, and I'll be your written exam administrator. If you all would look in the drawers of your desks, there's a piece of paper and a pen. Please take them out."  _Huh, so this is the son of Lady Temari. He does not look like her at all…_

Kame reached into the drawer and did as he'd been told, placing the sheet of paper and pen onto the desk in front of him. An immediate scan of the paper before him revealed it to be a written test; exactly what he'd expected.  _Wow, this is… really exactly what I expected…_  the two-sided sheet of paper had twenty questions, evenly split between calculations, ninjutsu knowledge, and ninja history.  _Huh, I somehow thought the chunin exams would be more… I don't know, surprising?_

Shikadai let out another long sigh, bringing the genins' eyes back over to him. "Okay, genin, you may begin the test. However, the people along the walls  _will_  be monitoring you, and after they catch you cheating for the second time, you will be disqualified from the exam, along with your team." Kame considered that, but looking back down at the test he could probably do it all without cheating. Since he was in a back row, raised above most of the class, he was safe from people copying his answers.

_Okay then, let's do this. Question one: Name all five sitting Kage during the Great Shinobi War._  That one was easy: The fourth Raikage, A, the fifth Kazekage, Gaara, the fifth Hokage, Tsunade, the third Tsuchikage, Onoki, and the fifth Mizukage, Terumi.  _Haku and Miri- I mean, Haku at least can probably get that one._  Kame could vividly remember Miriki spending most of the history lessons explaining to one female classmate or another why he was a hundred times more attractive than any Kage.

The next question was about jutsu.  _Name all five elemental changes of nature and five possible kekkegenkai that spring from a combination of two of them._   _Is this a joke?_  Chunin weren't held to a very high standard of academics, it seemed. Kame quickly wrote down the answer: Earth, Fire, Wind, Lightning, and Water; with the Wood, Magnet, Boil, Scorch, and Ice releases as the kekkegenkai.

The rest of the test was just as simple, with none of the questions pushing him anywhere out of his comfort zone. When he finished, a quick glance at the clock told him that it had taken him all of twelve minutes.  _How long am I going to be waiting here?_ Kame wondered.  _Maybe if I'm done anyway, I may as well see how the rest of the squads are doing._

When he looked around, he saw that many of the other contestants were still bent down over the desks in concentration. Little grunts of annoyance or noises of confusion revealed that people were in fact having trouble with the tests. Kame realized that the purpose of the chunin lining the walls was to watch for the inevitable attempts to cheat when thinking didn't work.  _This situation was made to force people to either have great intelligence and answer all of the questions right, or great ingenuity and cheat without getting caught_.

An older chunin in the second row bobbed his head to the side for the third time since Kame'd started watching him, and it must have been one too many for the chunin watching him as well. The watcher pointed at him and barked, "Applicant thirteen! Disqualified!" Before the man could protest, another two numbers were shouted. "Applicants fourteen and fifteen! Also disqualified! All of you leave, now."

The man seemed to look around in desperation, but had no choice but to walk out of the room, followed by two clearly disappointed teammates.  _That's not going to be me,_ thought Kame.  _But- Haku and Miriki, can they pass this test? I think Haku could probably get all of the ninja history questions, but Miriki I don't know about. The calculations were… I mean, I could deal with them, but those weren't taught at the academy, so I doubt they're going to get it. That leaves the jutsu section… Haku hasn't ever used a jutsu, and there's questions about chakra movement theory. She's probably in over her head._

Kame considered the situation and spared a glance at Haku's back. She was bent over her paper, focused on it, but not writing anything, which was a bad sign. He thought about what to do.  _If she fails this test, then we'll be at a disadvantage for the rest of the tournament- no, wait, if the applicants get caught cheating, then their whole team gets disqualified. That implies that they need full teams later in the exams, so it's possible that me and Miriki will get flunked if she fails._

He thought and thought, and finally remembered the rules of the exam. Applicants could only be punished if they were caught cheating  _twice_. With that in mind, he grabbed a paper bomb from his pocket, copied his answers onto the back of it, and balled it up.  _It all comes down to this,_  he thought, a smile creeping onto his face at the absurdity of the situation.  _Our chunin exam results resting on one throw of a piece of paper_. Calming his mind, he settled himself, took aim, and then threw.

The paper ball flew in an arc across the classroom and landed on the table in front of Haku, exactly where he'd aimed it. Haku leaped a little bit in her seat before bending forward to check what it was, unfolding it and seeing the writing on it, as well as his brief explanation. She whipped around to look at him and he waved at her, before leaning back nonchalantly. She then turned back to the tests and began writing again.

Kame's smile widened as he saw the chunin nearest to him narrowing their eyes. He'd clearly and intentionally cheated, but they couldn't punish him because it was the first time. Now Haku was definitely going to pass, leaving Miriki the only unsure variable in the equation. When he turned back to the class, it seemed that nobody had noticed his little stunt. A few confused glances were tossed his way, but the other genin for the most part seemed to write it off as something unimportant.

A few minutes and four more disqualified squads later, Shikadai stood back up at the front of the class and cleared his throat. What little writing still happening stopped, and he spoke. "Alright, genin,there's another rule that I haven't explained yet, so listen up. To pass this exam, you have to have answered eighteen or more of the twenty questions right." A wave of mutters and gasps spread through the classroom. "Now, there's two ways for you to submit your tests. First, you can turn it in as normal, get your personal grade, and pass or fail off of that. If you want to do this, you will mark the top of your paper with a 'one'."

_Then what's the other option?_  "The other method is to share with your teammates. If you mark your paper with a 'two' then your score will be divided by three and then added to a cumulative team score for all of the people who wrote 'two's. If all three of you choose to do so, then the resulting team score will be a perfect average of your scores. However, if one of you opts out, then it's impossible to pass, so choose your course very carefully."

_Crap,_ Kame thought.  _With that math, assuming me and by extension Haku both got perfect scores, and we were to average the team's scores, then we still fail if Miriki got seven or more questions wrong. Besides, there's no guarantee that both of them will go to average scores. Miriki might be too proud…_ "Pass up your tests, now."

_Time's up,_  thought Kame.  _I'm afraid this might be a bad choice, but… so far we've been pushed to do things as a team, so…_ He marked the paper with a 'two' and passed it to the chunin walking up their column. When all the papers had been taken, he noticed Miriki glancing at him with the star eyes, smirking. Shikadai turned to the class and nodded. "Congratulations on making it this far. You're all either intelligent, clever, or brave- but all of those things can only carry you so far. Remain here while we grade your tests."

The proctor disappeared into a door at the front of the room, followed by most of the chunin. A few remained behind, though, and their presence dampened spirits enough to keep the classroom silent. Seconds dragged on into minutes, Kame growing more and more nervous with each tick of the clock's hands, looking around at the other students who had varying expressions on their faces. The genin ranged from serene to terrified to smirking like Miriki, and Kame couldn't get a good read on how the rest of them had felt.

Finally, the door opened again, and Shikadai walked back in with a single piece of paper in his hands. Turning to face the class once again, he looked at the sheet and then at the applicants. "The following participants had insufficient scores, either due to wrong answers or incomplete participation in the shared score. Applicants one, two, four, eight, nine, thirteen…" He kept going, dismissing a good half of the remaining genin, who sullenly stood and exited when their numbers were called.

Shikadai finally smiled, a full smile that reminded Kame a little bit too much of Naziru's expression when she thought about torturing him. "And the following applicants received satisfactory scores, but wrote ones on their papers. Numbers two, three, fourteen…" Shikadai finished up with the long list of people, smile still present. "You all fail. Leave the room to catch up with your squadmates." A general uproar was silenced immediately by the smile turning to a glare, and his voice losing its boredom to transform to an authoritative bark. "All of you put your personal success before the squad and failed to believe in your squadmates, which chunin simply do not do. I told you that intelligence would only carry you so far, and it's true- in the ninja world, you will need to believe in your squad and vice versa. Get out of my sight, now."

Another huge swath of people stomped out, leaving the room with only maybe thirty genin. Kame saw Miriki and Haku still present, the stress momentarily clearing as he realized they they'd all passed the written exam. As the last failed contestant left the room, the doors were slammed shut and Shikadai's smile came back. "As for the rest of you, you all pass! Congratulations, you thirty genin are now one step closer to becoming chunin, which is more than I can say for sixty-nine of your peers."

_Yes!_ Kame let himself grin, elated at the knowledge that team eight had survived a third of the exams. Others shouted, fist-pumped, or simply laid back in relief, and Shikadai stood silently while the hubbub winded down. Eventually, the room was quiet enough for him to finish his speech. "You ten teams will now proceed out this door," he said, pointing towards an exit at the front right of the room, "and go straight down the steps. Once you reach the door to the outside courtyard, go through it, and you'll be given a half-hour to eat, talk, or do whatever you have to in preparation for stage two of your chunin exam. Good luck."

Everyone seemed to take their cue and move forward, filing through the door in no particular order. As the furthest one from the door, Kame ended up as the last in the line and by the time he made it down the stairs and out the door at the end, most of the other genin had already spread out and found their teammates. His own teammates walked up to him, equally huge smiles on their faces, but Haku spoke first. "Kame, we did it!"

Kame smiled back at her. "Yeah, we did…"

Miriki continued smiling, but it his expression turned right past Kame to settle on something across the courtyard. He nodded at the other two team eight members and said distractedly, "Yeah, woohoo, great job team! Can you excuse me for just one moment?" Without even waiting for a response he walked off towards whatever had captured his attentions.

Kame rolled his eyes, rotating around to check out who Miriki had set his sights on  _this_  time, but his nonchalance about it evaporated instantly once he saw who it was.  _Miriki is… he's… that's…_  Kame could only run to catch up but didn't make it in time, and was only able to watch as his teammate approached the Uchiha heir.

"Hey there, gorgeous." The girl turned to look at him without any emotion showing. "You can turn off your Sexy No Jutsu now."

"What?" She was staring at him like scum from the bottom of her shoe.

He feigned surprise. "What? You mean you  _aren't_  using illusory jutsu to look that attractive?" She narrowed her eyes, but he was either oblivious or still hopeful. "Then you can at least apologize for using tsukoyomi on me; I just lost three whole days staring into your eyes."

One of the girl's teammates, a slightly smaller-than-average boy wearing a white shirt and pants, grabbed her arm. "Naruko, ignore this creep, let's-" She threw off his arm, knocking him back a little bit and giving Kame a good look at his face. He had the pale white eyes that suggested a Hyuga heritage, short, straight brown hair, and an expression of anxiety.

"Shut up, Sureki, this guy's annoying me. And you," she said, turning to Miriki, "hop off, pervert." Naruko wore an expression of extreme distaste as she turned her gaze once more, from Miriki to Kame. "Is this your teammate? He was staring at me earlier, too. If you have something to say, then say it."

Kame shook his head. "I didn't mean any insult; I've just read a lot about your clan and-"

She turned away from him, apparently deciding the conversation was over. Shrugging, Kame turned around to walk back to where Haku was, dragging Miriki along with him. "Miriki, dude, you have to learn when- or,  _who_ , I guess- not to hit on. Married sister of the Kazekage? Bad idea. Powerful clan heir that you barely know? Bad idea."

Miriki sighed. "The secret to success with woman is to never know when to quit. I wouldn't expect someone like you who's never even been on a date to get that, but just leave me to my art, would you?"

_Well, that's pretty creepy,_  thought Kame. When they reached Haku, he let go of Miriki and sat down with legs crossed. Reaching into his pack, he found the food he'd packed that morning and pulled it out. In between bites, he considered the other squads in the courtyard. Tetsute's squad had passed, but besides them and team 8 no other Hidden Sand teams were present. There were two Leaf teams, a group of maybe third or fourth year genin and the Uchiha's group. Two teams from the Cloud, two teams from the Stone, and one team from the Mist brought the count up to nine, leaving the last team being…  _Oh, there they are,_ Kame thought as he looked to a back corner of the courtyard and recognized the Valley genin that they knew.

Keikiro seemed to recognize them at the same time, because she squealed and darted over. "Hey, guys, how's it going? That test was really something, huh? I knew that I had to trust my teammates, though, I mean, what's the point of having a squad if you're not gonna trust them with things?"

Miriki brightened up. "You can trust  _me_ with things, Keikiro." A casual smirk split his face, already having recovered from the awkwardness with Naruko. "Maybe I could trust you?" Keikiro blushed a little bit and turned away. "Can I trust you to come to a victory dinner with me tonight?" She nodded furiously.

_Well, we have to pass now,_  thought Kame sarcastically.  _His date is ruined if we don't._ Sagino and Gunaji walked up, both still eating lunches as they sat down. In between bites, Gunaji asked, "How were the last couple of weeks? Anything big happen?"

Kame shook his head. "Nothing much. We trained a lot, though." A thought occurred to him. "Hey, Gunaji, can I ask you something?"

"Go ahead."

Kame remembered the way he'd fought back during the first mission, by moving around sharpened stones through the air. "Do you use puppet jutsu to move those rocks, or what?"

The Valley genin nodded. "No... I mean, I'm not using chakra threads, if that's what you're asking. It's not something you can learn, it's a kekkegenkai."  _His tone makes it sound like he doesn't want to say any more._

Miriki sat straight up. "Oh, yeah! I just remembered what I was going to say to you guys earlier! I never explained my kekkegenkai to you, didn't I?" Kame shook his head, curious now about what it did. "The Hatogan, it's a two-part kekkegenkai that has a visual and dojutsu component. I've unlocked three of the nine aspects."  _The star in his eye has three points,_  thought Kame.

"So, anyway, the aspects come at different points for different people, but if they can access it completely, the result is the same. Our clan genjutsu, it isn't like most, where you trap someone inside of a vision within their mind by through one of their five senses. We actually target and change the senses, meaning that the victim can still move and act. However, it's a  _lot_ easier to use, and slightly more difficult to break. Five of the nine aspects are the five senses."

"So which ones have you gotten access to, then?" Kame asked, surprised that Miriki had been concealing such a powerful bloodline trait this whole time.

Miriki responded with surprising hesitance. "Uhh… the thing is… Okay, so I can hit two senses."

"And they are?" Kame had a bad feeling all of a sudden.

"Taste and smell," Miriki muttered.

_Taste and smell. Well, that's going to be super useful,_  thought Kame bitterly.  _Of course he ends up with the two most useless ones._ "Well, I mean… you said that you had  _three_  aspects? What's the third one?"

Miriki pointed at his eyes. "I can see people's fears." Then he cringed a little bit at what he'd said and shook his head. "I mean, I can't perpetually see everything a person's afraid of, but if they're particularly afraid of something at any given point I can sort of just understand it. That's why I was able to know that I should write the two on my test in there, both of you were  _terrified_  that I wasn't going to."

_That's a lot more useful,_  Kame thought.  _Wait, that explains how he's known exactly what to say to me and Haku whenever we've gotten nervous over the last couple of days.._. Kame finished his food and put the packaging back into his bag, seeing Haku had already done the same. Gunaji ended up being the one who responded to Miriki's explanation. "Are you sure you want us to hear you explain all this? We are shinobi from another village…"

Miriki shrugged. "I mean, you haven't given me any reason to hide things from you, and the Valley hasn't ever been an enemy to the Sand, so…" His eyes drifted over to Keikiro. "Besides, me and Keikiro just had a very important conversation about trust." The look they gave each other after that line made Kame a little bit sick, and he had to look away.

When he turned back around, there were three more genin standing next to their group of six. A light-skinned and wide-smiling shinobi was out front, waving at them despite being literally two feet away. "Hey, guys, what's going on over here?" His voice was nearly as absurdly happy as Keikiro's.

Keikiro must have recognized her kindred spirit, because she was the one who responded. "Oh, nothing much, we're just hanging out. Want to join? Where are you from; are you Hidden Cloud genin?"  _I mean, they're all three wearing Cloud headbands and a lot of white, so they're either Cloud ninja or people who killed and impersonated Cloud ninja._

The happy one nodded enthusiastically. "Soon to be Hidden Cloud chunin, actually!"

Another member of his squad rolled their eyes. This one was another boy, with brown hair and eyes, taller than normal and built with a lot of muscle. When he spoke, it was in a voice that seemed too deep for his age. "Don't you think you're calling that a little soon, Kosu?"

'Kosu' spun around to insult his teammate, "Ah, you're just a downer." Then he spun again, facing back towards their little group. "He's just a downer, don't mind him. My name is Kosu Iburi, Mr. Grumpy is Dako Nakimoka, and the quiet one is Zandeina Ryukana." The third Cloud ninja, Zandeina, was a kunoichi clad in a long coat, hood pulled over her head and blocking most of her face.

Kame thought that he should probably return the courtesy of introduction. "My name is Kame Hakiara, this is Miriki Kosuki to my left, and on my right is Haku. We're all Hidden Sand genin."

Keikiro introduced her whole squad as well, and then the Cloud shinobi sat down and they broke down into casual conversation. After a few minutes of silence, Kame decided he should probably participate in the talking, which was how he found himself speaking with the imposing Dako. "What's the Hidden Cloud like?"  _Ouch, that was awkward._

Dako spared him a glance that clearly said,  _Really?_  "What kind of question is that? It's a village, where I live and work. It's in the mountains."

_I didn't train myself in conversation-making, okay?_  Kame's wish for the conversation to be over was granted by a man suddenly appearing in the middle of the courtyard.  _What!? Is that? No; it can't be, he's way too young._  The man, probably in his late twenties or early thirties, stood up with perfect posture, wearing a green jumpsuit and two orange leg-warmers. Not only his outfit, but also his bowl cut and huge eyebrows all matched the pictures and descriptions that Kame had read of Rock Lee.

The Rock Lee lookalike opened his mouth and called out to the assembled genin. "Greeting! I am Metal Lee, your instructor for… for the…" He trailed off, shuddering a little bit, looking around at all the people surrounding him. "I will lead you in… the second part of the chunin exams."  _What's wrong with this guy?_ Kame was perplexed by the man's actions. He'd started out confident, but now he was uttering stilted sentences and looking like he'd rather be anywhere else. _Does he have... stage fright?_

"Come on, Lee-sensei!" The Namikaze genin shouted words of encouragement, which seemed to finally snap Metal Lee out of it.

"Yes. Yes! I will take you to the place of testing! Follow me!" Metal Lee turned around and marched off, leaving all of the genin to scramble around trying to pack up. He was already a good couple hundred meters away by the time participants started off after him, sprinting to catch up. Kame, having already packed up his food, waited for Miriki to clean up and then led his two squadmates on into their next challenge.


	12. Chunin Exams Arc Vol 2

**(A/N) Does anyone know if Darui has a last name? I couldn't find anything on it, so I'm making one up and running with it until further notice.**

**Ninja Profile: Zandeina Ryukana**

Ninjutsu: A  
Genjutsu: B  
Taijutsu: B  
Specialties: Storm Release, Speed, Capturing

Description: Zandeina has the light hair and dark skin of many in the Hidden Cloud, although her eyes are a piercing green. Despite usually wearing a large, heavy cloak to cover herself, she is highly demanding and outspoken in casual conversation. She constantly and clearly looks down on those around her and fights with a casualness borne of believing opponents to be unworthy of facing her.

Origin: Zandeina is the prodigy daughter of the fifth Raikage, and from a young age her talents developed extremely quickly. As she grew up surrounded by praise and people pushing her to do better and better, she started to believe in herself being better than all around her. Her pride and training pushed her into an early graduation from the academy, but after receiving a genin squad leader who she didn't get along with, it took her three years to earn the privilege of taking the chunin exams.

( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( )

After exiting the courtyard out into the woods surrounding the Leaf and walking at least a couple of kilometers, Metal Lee finally stopped in front of a mountain well outside the village. He whirled around, hands on his hips, and pointed at the mountain behind him. "This is the second stage of the chunin exam!"  _What._ Kame really wished that people in charge of him would be more clear with their instructions. Evidently the proctor realized his error, because he hastily tried again. "The second stage of the chunin exam will take place on this mountain!"

 _Okay, better,_ thought Kame. However, as seconds ticked by, an awkward cough sealed in the realization that Metal Lee was finished talking. "Umm, Lee-sensei?" Again, the Namikaze genin seemed to steer Metal in the right direction.

"Ah, yes, my apologies. For the second part of the chunin exams, there are exactly thirty special tokens scattered about on the summit of this mountain. It will be your job to climb to the top and secure them! Re-entering the courtyard with tokens will end the test for you and your team's score will be equal to the number of tokens you managed to collect."  _Okay, so it's a race with a tactical element thrown in_ , Kame considered.  _He said that entering the courtyard ends the test, which means that on the way back the test is still going._

Sagino raised a hand and Lee nodded at her. "So, what's the minimum score required to pass? And do we have to defend ourselves from the other participants?"

Metal immediately responded. "There is no minimum score! Once all teams have finished, or after forty-eight hours, the five highest scoring teams will be admitted into the finals."  _F_ _orty-eight hours!? There's no way that the mountain could take that long to climb._ "As for the rules surrounding attacking the other participants… you are free to use whatever weapons and jutsu you are able to. However, injuring or killing another participant will be punished severely, possibly even with a lifetime ban from taking the chunin exams."

Kame nodded, trying not to focus on the fact that he'd brought up killing as a possible and even predictable outcome. Looking around at the other participants, none of them looked like murderers…  _Haku's a murderer,_  some nasty voice in his head reminded him.  _It's different, she was on a job and the guy was trying to kill people,_ he justified back.

Metal then pointed to the sides. "The fence around this mountain has several gateways, all of which are monitored and controlled remotely. They are numbered starting with the one behind me, number one, through number ten to my left." He reached into a pocket and pulled out a piece of paper, reading off of it. "When the gates open, you are free to go. Now, applicants ninety-seven, ninety-eight, and ninety-nine, you will remain here. Applicants forty, forty-one, and forty-two, go to gate two…" As he numbered off the gates, Kame took careful note and assembled a mental map of the teams.

The Leaf squads were adjacent in positions nine and ten, meaning that they'd be starting close to team eight. To the right was the sole Mist team, and then in counterclockwise order were teams from the cloud, stone, the cloud team that they'd spoken to, another stone team, Tetsute's team, and the Valley team. Kame yanked his backpack off and removed all of Wasp's parts, assembling it as rapidly as he could.

While he was concentrated on his task, a loud voice crackled to life through the overhead intercom. "Greeting, genin! It is I, Metal Lee, still your instructor! The entirety of the training ground is monitored, so we can watch and understand your performance. However, we will  _only_  step in if there is a situation that could threaten a participant's life or permanent injury."

Kame finished the last leg of Wasp and made the chakra thread, lifting it from the ground. He'd had a couple of chances to practice during the journey to the Leaf, and he had to admit that Kankuro had been right. The smaller puppet was significantly easier to use and would actually be a great asset in any fights they had. Haku, noticing that he was done, spoke up. "Kame, how are we going to play this? Do we just rush straight to the top, or should we try to steal the tokens from other teams?"

Kame thought about it for a second.  _Metal Lee didn't explain what the tokens were going to be, did he? That means that they could be something incredibly easy or incredibly difficult to steal. We can't put all of our eggs in the stealing basket._  He glanced at Haku, and then at Miriki, considering the situation.  _But I don't know if we can win a race, either. Miriki isn't very fast, and if we leave at the same time as the other teams, we'll probably get there after them. That means we'll have to walk into a trap._

 _Wait- if all of the teams are heading to the top at their different speeds, then nobody can set a trap! They'd have to defend from all angles, sorely outnumbered._ Kame turned to face his teammates. "We're just gonna go straight for the top, but slow down once we get close and make sure that we know what we're walking into…"

Haku nodded, but Miriki raised an eyebrow. "So we're just going straight into the war zone? Who made you leader, huh?"  _Oh my god, now is not the time for a power struggle, Miriki._

Haku, completely straight-facedly, said, "Let's put it to a vote."

Miriki looked at her, then at Kame, and then back again, and rolled his eyes. "Fine, let's go with Kame's plan."

Kame nodded, grateful for Haku's support. "Okay then, if we do run into another team, let's talk about what to do. I think we should immediately back off and formulate a plan of attack or retreat. If they get the drop on us, we have to scatter, in which case we would need to meet back up. Let's say our meeting point is… back here?" The other two nodded. "Good. In fights, what we do is going to change drastically depending on the abilities of our enemies, but in general I feel like our job should be keeping them on their heels and unfocused until Haku can close in to beat them in melee."

They both nodded, and Haku opened her mouth to respond, but at that moment, the gate opened and a loud buzzer sounded out over the intercom. The three of them immediately nodded to each other and charged off into the forest, but remained on the ground. As much as Kame had heard and read about ninja using the branches to leap through the woods, he hadn't had much of an opportunity to practice it, having grown up in a desert. He could attempt it for the first time, but that seemed like a terrible idea-  _The middle of the chunin exams, surrounded by enemy teams, is not the best place to learn new things._

Then he remembered something and snorted. Without breaking pace, Haku turned slightly to look at him. "Kame? What is it, what's so funny?"

"It's just…" Kame rolled his eyes. "Deihaka entered us in this exam in the first place as a 'learning experience'..." Haku giggled a little bit and Miriki cracked a smile.  _Learning experience my ass._ Not for the first time, Kame thought about their sensei's inexperience.  _Why did he agree to take on a team of genin, anyway? He's a very new jonin, and he clearly doesn't enjoy or have any talent for teaching._

They reached the base of the mountain and began making their way up through treacherous rocks, finding a path by hopping or climbing from ledge to ledge. Wasp still hovered right around Kame's head, and he made sure to keep it ready to intercept an attack if necessary. It was no Salamander and would probably break under any serious damage, but a broken puppet was better than disqualification or injury.

They scaled the mountain even faster than he'd thought they would. After only maybe twenty minutes, they'd already neared the top of it.  _Why would we need forty-eight hours for this?_ He heard the sounds of battle from ahead and raised a hand to indicate that they should slow down, then crept forward very carefully, readying a Gale Force Jutsu just in case he'd need a hasty escape.

He finally peeked his head around a rock to see the flattened top of the mountain, on which a small battle was taking place. From what he could gather, it looked like the two Stone teams had reached the tokens first and were trying to defend them, obviously not having thought through how that was going to end up. Both Cloud teams and the Mist team were surrounding and trading attacks and jutsu with them, gradually wearing them down.

 _Okay,_ Kame considered,  _how are we going to play this? If we wait for the Cloud and Mist to win, then they might take all of the tokens._ Looking more carefully, he noticed that the stone clearing had a pile of metal bars in the middle, cylinders perhaps eight inches long and three inches wide.  _Nevermind, they'll never be able to carry that much. Doing the math, as long as we take…_  He thought about it for a moment. Thirty total tokens divided by five winning teams would equal six, leaving twenty-four to be taken by the others. Even if those twenty-four  _were_  split evenly among four other teams, those four would equal team eight in score.  _In that case, we need to take six of them to guarantee ourselves a spot in the top five._

At that moment, he saw Tetsute's team emerge and attack the Mist team from behind.  _Okay, now the battle's even, so we should…_ Kame was very unsure of what to do; any action could end up in their team being attacked and disqualified.  _Maybe we could attack all of them? No, that would make enemies out of everyone else and put us at a huge disadvantage._  A thought occurred to him, suddenly, and he decided to risk it.

"Miriki, I need you to create some form of a distraction for the Stone ninja guarding the tokens when I tell you to, understood?" The Stone genin in question was standing beside the pile of tokens and flinging barrages of earth at the cloud ninja, forcing them to duck behind cover. Miriki nodded assent, and Kame put his plan into action.

He breathed deeply and then cast the Wind Barrier Jutsu- but not on himself. Instead, he centered it on Wasp, which was difficult but not impossible given the way his chakra was connected to it through the thread. A miniature tornado swirled to life around it, but something was wrong-  _Crap, the wings!_  He swore mentally as the tornado's intense winds simply tore off the stabilizers. Although Wasp would still be able to move as normal, it would be a lot more difficult to keep it under control.

Without any other real option, Kame just had to press on. He willed through the chakra thread and moved it forward as fast as he could, sending the tiny construct whizzing forward through the fight. Although a lot of the stray kunai and dust were knocked away by the defensive jutsu, Kame still had to dodge quite a few larger attacks. A huge boulder nearly crushed Wasp and his last-second dodge flipped it over, forcing him to concentrate harder and  _just barely_  manage to flip it back. Through gritted teeth he grunted, "Now, Miriki!"

Through the corner of his eye, he saw Miriki smiling  _way_  too mischievously and even laughing briefly. "Thought you'd never ask." The Sand genin's pupil stretched in three directions and spun briefly into its Hatogan state, his smile growing slightly more strained with concentration. Wasp was nearing the pile, and the Stone guard seemed to notice something, but as he started to turn, suddenly he doubled over and began coughing. Although he was far away and the battle was loud, Kame could catch a few scattered words: "Disgusting", "Tastes like shit", and "Poison".

With the Stone ninja so distracted, Wasp was free to land atop the pile. Kame narrowed his eyes to try and see how many he was grabbing, but it was very difficult. When he closed the four legs inward, it looked to be around six of the tokens, but the Stone ninja suddenly straightened up and stared at the small puppet taking away his prize and roared.  _Well, time's up,_  thought Kame. He focused completely on Wasp and willed it to come flying towards him, tearing over at breakneck speed. With the added weight, the quick dodges he'd executed earlier were out of the question, so his only option was to hope that he could make up for it with pure speed.

Luck seemed to be on his side, as Wasp cleared the battle and swung around the boulder that concealed their team. To Kame's chagrin, though, when he released the legs he found not six but five of the little metal things sitting before him.  _That doesn't guarantee our win… do we leave now and hope that one team takes way more than the others, or go back for another one?_  It wouldn't be right to just leave the others out of it, so he turned to face them. "Haku, Miriki, I took one too few of these things." He let the shame he felt escape to his face. "So, if we leave now, there's no guarantee that we'll end up in the top five teams. One more of them will guarantee us a spot, so… do you two want to risk it?"

Miriki frowned. "My genjutsu won't work on that guy again, you realize? The way to break it is to do something that contradicts the new sensation. Genjutsu release doesn't work because instead of clouding their chakra points, I  _use_  them to lie to their brain about what they're feeling. That guy must have figured out that the literal crap I put in his taste buds wasn't real and swallowed, removing the effect. Now he's wary of it and I can't hit him with another, especially since that genjutsu eats up about one-third of my chakra."

 _Wait, so changing someone's taste alone eats up that much chakra!?_  Kame had started to regain faith in his teammate, but it was dashed by that last statement. Haku chimed in her opinion, "If you two can cover me, I'm pretty sure I can take out the guard and get out of there with a token."

Kame shook his head. "There's too many mixed jutsu flying around out there, actually running into it is a death sentence. I like that plan, but we need to wait for the situation to change, first. I'll tell you guys when I think Haku should engage, okay?" They agreed, and Kame settled in to scan the battle for any opening.

Tetsute's squad was just finishing off the Mist squad. Their surprise attack had been highly effective, and Tetsute's pride-and-joy quicksand jutsu incapacitated them long enough for Rakuyo to knock them out. One of the mist ninja survived the initial combo, but Genji was on him and took his down as well with a Wind Blade Jutsu. Meanwhile, the Cloud and Stone teams that had been previously trading even were now losing members rapidly. Miriki's genjutsu had distracted the stone-thrower long enough for a cloud ninja to get on him with a kunai, smashing the side of his head (with the hilt, thankfully) and putting him out cold. The Stone ninja's comrade responded with an attack using a huge boulder encased over his fist, knocking the Cloud ninja flying.

Suddenly, Zandeina leaped forward from the cover and held out her hands, shouting, "Storm Style: Crackling Doom!" Bright blue lightning leapt from her hands and streamed into three of the Stone shinobi, electrocuting them almost instantly and dropping their bodies to the floor.  _Did she… kill them?_ Kame remembered the proctor warning them against excessive violence, but his worries were stopped when one of the Cloud kunoichi's victims stirred and groaned a little bit.

The two remaining Stone shinobi swore and bolted, one of them grabbing their fallen comrade. That meant that, with three members down, one entire Stone team had been taken out. The surviving team was down a member, but probably had the requisite six tokens somewhere with them. Kame briefly toyed with the idea of hunting them down, but Zandeina already seemed to be doing it, charging off after them. Kosu and Dako both took off as well, leaving Tetsute's squad and the crippled Cloud squad as the only two left in the clearing.

Kame decided now was as good as it was going to get, standing and hurling a concussive paper airplane at the center of the clearing. "Haku! Go!"

He detonated the plane, blasting a wave of force out from just above the pile of metal and knocking everything around it back. Haku bolted forward and snatched a token before turning and sprinting back towards them, barely more than a blur as she ate up the distance in seconds. Tetsute shouted angrily and threw a couple of kunai, but she'd already cleared the danger area. Kame slung the backpack with the tokens inside of it over his shoulder, darting off back down the mountain along with Haku and Miriki.

 _Okay, now we just have to make it back to the courtyard with these._ Kame considered the teams that hadn't been present at the battle atop the clearing- the Leaf teams and the Valley team. They were probably waiting with traps, taking the tactic of simply taking other teams' tokens rather than getting them for themselves. A shout from behind them took him out of his contemplation and he turned around in horror to see Tetsute leading Rakuyo and Genju back down the mountain!  _Those assholes are gonna chase us down, huh?_

He turned Wasp around and triggered the weapon in its mouth, launching a volley of needles at their pursuers.  _That should slow them down, but at some point we'll have to fight them. I'd rather not do it on the mountain, and the terrain should keep us about even on speed, but as soon as we hit solid ground we're too weighed down to outrun them._ "Haku, Miriki," he said, trying to keep his voice down so the other Sand squad wouldn't be able to hear him, "When we hit solid ground we have to turn on them, alright?"

They nodded, and the chase continued on in much the same way for minutes, both teams trading projectile attacks but nothing serious, too focused on keeping their footing on the uneven and rocky mountain surface. Finally, Kame saw the forest floor ahead of him and dropped two paperbombs at his feet before leaping down to it and turning to face his rivals. "Yo, Tetsute, jealous much? Don't you have something better to do than run us down? Or was I right the other night about how insecure you really are?"

Miriki and Haku both glanced at him, as he'd never told them about his less-than-kind parting words with the bullies he'd once called friends. He resolved to explain it to them later, but for the time being he had to focus on the battle. Tetuse stopped on a boulder a good thirty feet up the mountain, sneering at team eight arrayed below him. "Come on, Kame, you've got to do better than that for trash talk. Plus, that was a weak plan; did you honestly think I was gonna miss those paperbombs you dropped?"

Kame shrugged, but Miriki stepped forward and replied for him. "Sorry, we just didn't want to make it too much of a slaughter. If we went all-out on you right from the start, it'd make us look bad."

Tetsute snickered. "All out? Please, Loverboy, it's you and the cripple-" he nodded towards Haku- "That's  _I'm_  going easy on. You can't handle me going all-out." Miriki laughed, and Tetsute's eyes narrowed. "What is it? Is something funny?"

"Well, it's just… 'You can't handle me going all-out' was what I said to your mom a couple nights ago." Miriki's smirk grew wider, and Genji broke down laughing. Tetsute shot back a murderous look towards his teammate and turned back to make a comeback, but Miriki wasn't done. "Of course, your sister- she  _was_  able to handle me going all-out, so go figure." Tetsute's sister wasn't a shinobi, as far as Kame knew she worked at the family restaurant. "Kinda makes me wonder exactly what kind of service she's giving to your restaurant customers, eh?"

Tetsute's eyes bulged almost out of his skill and the veins in his forehead were visible. He started to yell something, but Miriki just talked over him again. "Anyway, Rakuyo…" He turned to face the team seven kunoichi, shit-eating grin plastered all over his face. "Do you think  _you_  could handle me going all-out?"  _Oh, no…_  Kame remembered Tetsute's raging crush on the third member of their little group all the way through their time at the academy. "I'm willing to bet no, since Mr. Compensating-For-Something over here seems like all of the dick was put into his personality rather than where it matters."

Genji actually fell over laughing, and Tetsute made a strangled noise and sheathed his kunai, whipping his hands forward and putting them together.  _Miriki, you pushed him too far,_  thought Kame, even as he yelled for his teammates to dodge. His warning came not a moment too soon as Tetsute made a series of complex seals and then slammed his hands on the earth. Suddenly, a rippled shot forth and upon reaching a point a few feet ahead of Kame, exploded outwards in a wave of earth.

Even as Kame was leaping back, he saw that the area of Tetsute's jutsu was far too large, perhaps twenty meters in radius. The other boy shouted, "Earth Style: Quicksand Sea!" Kame noticed, too late, that his jump wouldn't take him out of the area, and he'd land within it, which was certain death- once the Quicksand jutsu had you, there was little you could do to escape it. Rakuyo's specialty was marksmanship, and she'd pick him off with ease.

Suddenly, he was grabbed from behind and violently thrown towards the treeline. As he hurtled over to the branches and managed to secure himself just barely, he saw that Haku had intercepted him in mid-air- but now she was in danger. Miriki, on the other hand, had managed to jump up into an overhanging branch and was hiding himself, using the tree as cover.  _Damn it, Haku's in trouble now,_ Kame thought,  _She can't reposition herself in mid-air, which means she's going to hit the sand!_

There was only one thing he could think of, but it was going to be very difficult. If Haku was pinned, though, there was little doubt that she'd be used as a hostage, and he'd never be able to watch them hurt her without giving in to their demands.  _Alright, Deihaka-sensei,_   _if you're watching this, wish me luck!_  Kame jumped  _down_  off of the branch, readying one of his Wind jutsu, and waiting for the exact right moment, cast it in his outstretched hand milliseconds before he hit the pool of quicksand. "Gale Force Jutsu!"

The resulting blast of wind knocked him back hard enough that he went flying by the branch he'd just leaped from, a chakra-gripping hand just managing to get him onto it. Since he'd had more downwards speed, his jutsu had also flung Haku away from her impending doom, sending her hurtling off towards the far end of the jutsu. She twisted in the air and managed to grab hold of the branch, using her agility and strength rather than chakra to secure herself.

 _Alright, our turn,_  thought Kame, just as he saw Genji release a jutsu of his own. A sixth sense warned him to duck and saved him from a lot of pain as a blade of wind scythed forward, punching through the leafy branches and crunching a deep crater in the bark of the tree behind where his chest had been.  _I guess they're not pulling punches, huh?_

Rakuyo appeared to have chosen Miriki as her opponent, flinging kunai after kunai at him with deadly accuracy. He was pinned behind the trunk of the tree, unable to even poke his head out without a shuriken zipping towards it.  _Okay, Kame, think. How can you turn the tables on them?_  Tetsute's jutsu cost him a lot of chakra, but it was a once-off thing. Once the ground was liquefied, it took a couple of hours for it to return to normal, with or without Tetsute's focusing on it. Genji used the Hidden Sand's Wind Blade technique, but he was still a novice, so his attacks were more like Wind Clubs.  _Not that they're any less deadly at our level._

Kame spun around the trunk to get some cover before starting to formulate a plan, but all of a sudden Haku was standing right in front of him. "So what's the plan?" He winced a little bit, which she noticed. "Oh, okay then… in that case, I… I learned a finisher move from Shira-sensei, but they have to be in the air for it to work." Kame nodded, taking in the information and thinking about it.

A while ago, Kame had read a book that talked about mid-battle tactics and strategy. It argued that the most important thing to keep in mind during any fight was the win condition: what had to occur in order to win the fight. The more complex or thought-out a shinobi's understanding of their win condition was, the better they could strategize and manipulate the battle until they got there. A non-shinobi, for example, might say that their win condition was to kill the opponents. An academy student might think a little more and say that their win condition was to disable at least one enemy, giving them a numbers advantage that would spiral into eventual victory. A rank genin, upon hearing about Haku's new technique, would correctly state that the win condition was now to knock Tetsute airborne.

However, Kame had already placed a bomb on the ground in front of Tetsute, so Tetsute couldn't go down. Therefore, their win condition for this fight was to get him to move forward, making him jump over the bomb he knew was there. With that in his mind, Kame nodded to Haku and said, "Be ready."

He then ran some chakra through his feet, climbing the tree and hoping that his opponents weren't able to discern his movements. When he emerged to look, his hopes were confirmed; Genji was still watching the middle of the tree when Kame was at the top.  _Now, to end this._  He sent Wasp flying around the edge of the fight, keeping it in sight as it kept outside the enemy sightling, until it was some fifty meters above Tetsute's cohort.  _Now, you're mine,_ Kame thought, as he gathered some of his remaining chakra and used one of his easier techniques. "Substitution Jutsu!"

Kame appeared, now holding the high ground, and ordered Wasp to fire off a few more needles, which were easily deflected by Tetsute.  _Time to finish this,_ he thought, and threw down three paper airplanes at the team seven members. Evidently, they somehow sensed his attack coming, because Rakuyo whirled around and threw a kunai knife at the one flying towards her. She aimed at the next one, but before she could shoot it out of the sky, her eyes widened and she bent at the waist in a familiar display of extreme disgust.  _Nice one, Miriki._

Tetsute, who wasn't as good as Rakuyo at marksmanship, instead chose to dodge. He wasn't a complete idiot, and made sure that his backwards jump cleared Kame's paperbomb trap, but his overconfidence cost him dearly as Haku blurred across the battlefield to appear over him. She spun in a forwards somersault, swinging out a leg, and brought her heel down directly onto his midriff with enough force to make Kame cringe.

The strike sent Tetsute flying downwards, but Haku wasn't done, allowing gravity to push her down as well, still spinning in the somersault. Tetsute hit the ground with another loud whump, eyes glazing over slightly, and then her foot came down onto him once more, now with all of her weight and gravity behind it. She yelled, "Sand Devil!" Tetsute, trapped between the second attack and the ground, coughed out  _blood_  and went limp. Haku darted back, resuming a defensive Taijutsu pose, but there was no need.

Rakuyo jumped down from her perch and took Tetsute's pulse, then looked angrily at Haku. "What the hell was that, you idiot!? This is a test, not a god damn duel to the death!" Genji also dropped his stance and fell to kneel besides his fallen teammate.

Haku immediately lost the triumph from her face, freezing in her stance of confusion. "I- I'm sorry, I didn't mean to… I didn't…"

Rakuyo glared at her. "Go. Get out of here, you vicious little… ugh."

Haku turned and left, Miriki following her.  _This isn't at all what I thought the exams would be like,_ thought Kame. Every source he'd ever heard of listed them as vicious battles where many people died, but as soon as Haku had used a powerful technique all malice had been lost.  _Maybe it's just because they're from our same village, but… I don't know._  Kame jogged forward, calling Wasp to join him as he caught up to his two teammates, six tokens still secure in his possession.


	13. Chunin Exams Arc Vol 3

**Ninja Profile: Genji Sanakishi**

Ninjutsu: B  
Genjutsu: D  
Taijutsu: B  
Specialties: Wind Blade Jutsu, Accuracy, Loyalty

Description: Genji is small and short for his age, with dark brown hair and eyes. He wears an almost perpetual grin as if everything he sees is funny, and is quick to laugh. He usually wears the requisite Sand vest and headband, but underneath he prefers to wear more comfortable sweatpants and loose shirts.

Origin: The Sanakishi are a moderately-sized clan within the Hidden Sand, closely tied to the Kosuki. As a result, Genji grew up with Miriki and spent a lot of time with the other boy. When Miriki decided to become a ninja, Genji followed him into the academy, deciding to learn the Wind Blade technique of the Hidden Sand. However, after they began to meet and interact with the other children, the Sanakishi heir watched as his friend grew more interested in girls than in training, which drove a rift between them. Genji was left with training to dive into, which he did with a passion.

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"C'mon, let's eat, twenty minutes either way isn't going to make a difference…" Miriki wheedled away at Kame. The sun had set, but they were nearing the courtyard even through the darkness. The ambient light from the now-nearby village and the moon was enough for them to travel through the forest, although Kame wasn't sure if it was enough to see an ambush coming. "Come onnnn, please? If there's people, we don't want to fight them on an empty stomach, right? Look, look, this is a great spot here!" he said, as they reached a spot where the dirt of the forest floor dropped straight down into a secluded spot.

_I'm going to regret this,_ thought Kame, but he still shrugged and dropped down. "Fine, Miriki, we can stop for twenty minutes to eat, but then no more complaining." His squadmate nodded happily and joined him on the ground, Haku sitting with them as well. They all removed various rations from their packs and dug in, and Kame had to admit that Miriki had been at least a little bit right. The stale rations were still great considering he'd been running, stressing, or fighting for several hours straight.

They ate in relative silence, ever-cautious about possible enemies emerging. Kame didn't think that the weakened Cloud, Stone, or Mist teams would attack them, and Tetsute's squad was also unlikely to seek revenge, but that left four teams that were still out there.  _Still, it's just a short little walk to the courtyard. We might even finish a whole day before the deadline._

Even after he finished his dinner and was putting the containers away, movement off to the left caught Kame's eye. He leaped up into a ready position and drew a weapon, but loosened slightly when he saw who it was.

A dirty and bedraggled squad of Valley genin walked towards them, with Keikiro throwing up a hand in greeting. "Hey guys, what's… what's up…?" She was obviously trying to look happy, but there was no disguising the pain in her voice or the weak stumble that messed up her walking. Looking at the other two, Gunaji's arm hung limp by his side and Sagino's forehead was bloodied.  _Who could have done this to them?_

Miriki was beside Keikiro in an instant, putting her arm over his shoulder and helping carry her over to their camp. "Keikiro… what happened? Why are you guys hurt so bad?"

The smaller genin swallowed. "I… we attacked…" She seemed to be at a complete loss for words, but thankfully Gunaji decided to help her out.

"It was the Leaf team, the younger one." His eyes were hard as he recounted the battle. "We tracked down an escaping Stone team that had a member missing, and took them out. They had six tokens on them, so we grabbed the tokens and booked it towards the courtyard. But, when we got there, they… the team with the Uchiha was waiting, and I think they'd already taken out multiple other teams. The Uchiha girl, I think her name was Naruko, she was gloating about them already having twelve tokens.

"We tried to make it to the courtyard but somehow the Namikaze one used the Wood Release and stopped us, and then Naruko hit us with a genjutsu that trapped us inside our own minds. Sagino got out, but the Hyuga took her down like it was nothing and then came after me and disabled my arm. We tried to escape but they got ahold of my pack, so we lost all of our six of our tokens to them."

Kame nodded, mind racing, and lost in his thoughts as he was he failed to notice Miriki scooting over and grabbing his pack. Before he could ask what the other boy was doing, the pack was open and Miriki had grabbed three of their tokens, holding them out to the Valley genin. "Here, you can have these."

_What the hell are you doing!?_ Kame briefly considered telling Miriki off but then slowed down and considered the situation. If eighteen of the tokens were already out of the picture, then giving three to the Valley team wouldn't hurt- in fact, as long as both teams made it through the gate, then they should have the same passing guarantee.  _Of course, that assumes we can make it through the gate,_ thought Kame darkly.

"If they beat you so handily, then I doubt we can take them on," Kame reasoned. "Therefore, I think we should form a temporary alliance."

Gunaji nodded. "That seems like the best course. But-"

Kame already knew what he was going to say. "We'll take tonight to rest up and attack them tomorrow. I can take first watch, then Haku, then Miriki." Gunaji looked like he was going to object, but Kame shook his head. "No, you all won't take watches. You need to rest and try to recover if you're going to be much help."

Gunaji relented and pulled out his bedroll, and his allies did so as well. Kame climbed up to sit above the others on the dirt ledge, scanning the area as best as he could. However, try as he might to avoid it, his thoughts still drifted to the Leaf team that they'd have to fight. During their first mission, the Valley genin seemed to have similar levels of combat effectiveness as team eight. For them to be beaten so brutally, so easily… how strong was this Leaf team?

They had the Hyuga's Byakugan and Gentle Fist, the Uchiha's Sharingan, and now apparently the Senju Wood Release. In comparison, Kame's complete lack of any Kekkeigenkai, Haku's inability to access hers, and Miriki's mediocre smell and taste alteration seemed so incredibly weak. His thoughts got more and more pessimistic as he kept considering the situation.  _We have to approach them from the front, because the courtyard has only one side open to the battleground. They'll see us coming, and then what?_

_If I try a mass assault of explosives, then… no, it will either fail and our hand will be tipped, or it succeeds and they die. I don't want to kill them. What; then? Gunaji has a good mid-range jutsu, but he's hurt and probably not operating at full capacity. Keikiro is more of a sensory or utility ninja than anything else. If Haku tries anything, she'll just get put under that Uchiha's genjutsu immediately. Miriki is outgunned in the genjutsu department and doesn't have much else going for him, and I…_

_I guess it all comes down to me, then._  Kame shuddered at the responsibility on his shoulders, the image of that black-haired girl glaring at him growing more and more imposing in his mind. He started running mock battles in his head, thinking through every possible outcome with all the information laid out before him. Every single one seemed to end in him being overpowered, Haku being caught in genjutsu, and Miriki getting immediately taken out.

_We have to somehow get at least one member through that- wait…_  a chill of cold terror went through him as he realized that the Leaf team probably could have crossed a long time ago.  _Why didn't they? Do they enjoy harming the other teams?_ When he thought about the proud Naruko girl looking at him like a disgusting insect, that theory didn't seem all that far off of reality.  _Maybe they're overachievers trying to get as high of a score as possible._

He hadn't even noticed how late it was until his timer let out a small noise, alerting him to wake up Haku.  _Maybe some sleep will give me the ideas that my waking mind can't_ , he thought, as he shook his teammate awake and laid down to rest.

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The next morning, Haku returned the favor and brought him back to consciousness. When he blinked awake, the first thought in his mind was:  _What's that smell? What the- who cooked Miso? In this forest!?_ He sat bolt upright, looking around for the delicious food that he hadn't expected.  _Maybe Keikiro or Gunaji or Sagino have secret talents with cooking!?_  His mouth literally watering, he looked around to see the other shinobi all… eating… normal rations…

"Miriki, you son of a-"

Miriki grinned at Keikiro, who was suppressing a giggle. "See, I told you that the smell alteration wasn't useless."

Kame looked at the field rations in his pack and how little he'd be able to enjoy eating them after being tempted with one of his favorite breakfasts. "Miriki, as the democratically elected team leader, I'm going to…" he thought about it for a moment, and with nothing coming to mind, simply collapsed onto his back lamely. "Ugh. Don't do that again."

After choking down the bland calorie bars, he packed back up his bag and took a quick parts check on Wasp.  _Maybe I fired too much during that last fight,_  he thought, as Wasp had run through about 70% of its needles.  _That means that I can't use that as much during this next one, huh…_

Gunaji, Sagino, and Keikiro all looked miles better. Gunaji's arm looked to have recovered from having its chakra point overloaded, Keikiro's fatigue was all but gone, and Sagino's forehead injury had bled a lot but wasn't all that bad when she was cleaned up.  _But that doesn't mean they're at full power_ , Kame reminded himself.  _I need to be careful about how much I try to get them to do._

"Alright then, guys, I'm going to be honest with you." He swallowed a little bit, nervous about the concession he was about to make. "I don't have a full plan of attack. From how you guys described them, these guys seem pretty strong, and I don't know if they have any more powers that they didn't use. Therefore, I think we just have to do this on a matchup basis. That way, the teams of two can improvise mid-fight, and I can make sure to try to keep you all away from the people who cover your weaknesses."

The genin around him nodded their agreement. "So, I thought about this a lot, and here's what I have. Naruko, the Uchiha, seems like a genjutsu specialist, so I think me and Gunaji should try to take her on. We both know how to release genjutsu, and she doesn't seem to have any special defense against our physical attacks. Sagino and Miriki, you two should go after the Wood Release user, and Haku and Keikiro, you guys take on the Hyuga. Also, you two should carry the tokens, since you're the fastest."

Miriki coughed a little bit. "You're putting Haku up against their extreme taijutsu specialist? Doesn't the Gentle Fist specialize against other taijutsu users?"

Kame nodded. "Yeah, it seems bad, but keep in mind that the primary effect of the Gentle Fist is that even glancing blows can take away your chance to use jutsu. However, Haku doesn't use jutsu, which mean that having her arms' chakra points blocks should be  _less_  bad than it is for us. Plus, she has the best chance of being able to dodge his attacks."

Miriki nodded, quieting down a bit, and then as if an unspoken agreement was reached, all of them stood and started to move towards their objective. As they neared the edge of the forest, Kame tossed back one final bit of advice. "Keep in mind that, in order to pass this test, only one person from each team has to pass into the courtyard."

With that, they broke through the treeline and stood across a grass clearing from the genin squad of the Hidden Leaf. For a moment, all was still, and then they charged.

Kame readied and launched a stream of paper airplanes, but the Uchiha (with sharingan clearly visible in their eyes) seemed to know what was going on with them and took them out of the air with kunai, shaking him a little bit- so far, only Rakuyo had been skilled enough with ranged weapons to do that. Gunaji's stones, though, whipped off towards her, and she couldn't knock those out of the sky. She could, however, dodge them, which she did with seeming ease.

While she was off-balance, Kame launched another airplane at her, detonating it in mid-air to fill the area with a dark smoke.  _That should keep her sharingan under control,_ he thought, as he readied Wasp to swing around and attack her from the side. He realized his mistake, though, when Gunaji leaped back and had to recall his attacking stones. "Crap, sorry, dude."

_So more smoke bombs are out of the question._  Kame hovered Wasp at the edge of the smoke cloud, preparing himself but also taking a moment to look at the other two teams' fights. Haku appeared to be going even with their taijutsu user, while Keikiro was edging around the back and moving towards the goal. Sagino was forcing her way forward through a barrage of wooden attacks, her stone skin unyielding against the wood that splintered against her. Miriki appeared to be looking for an opening to attack through the crashing waves of wood all originating at the Namikaze heir, who…  _What?_ The boy had the veined and pale eyes of someone with the Byakugan.

Before he could think about that any further, the smoke had cleared enough and he sent Wasp flying forward towards Naruko. He fired off a few needles at her, but she deflected them with a kunai fairly easily. Gunaji's rocks came back in, but this time she dropped under them and rolled forward, making a few seals in her hands. Suddenly, Gunaji yelped and then froze in place, staring at her.  _So her genjutsu is visual, huh? It's most likely centered around her eyes._

Kame made a mental note not to look into her eyes and continued his assault. With her forward dash, Wasp was now behind her, which meant that he could attack with it more seriously. A twitch of his finger launched one of its legs forward, straight towards Naruko's leg. She turned, raising her kunai to deflect it, but misjudged both the size of the projectile and its location, an error that cost her as Wasp's bladed leg sank deep into her leg.

And then she disappeared into a puff of smoke, and a new Naruko shimmered into being directly behind Wasp. A quick swing of her kunai broke the puppet seal, and it fell uselessly to the ground, its chakra cord severed.  _Crap, falling for a clone jutsu like some academy student,_  Kame thought.  _Of course, the Shadow Clone Jutsu is a jonin level technique that takes a huge amount of chakra- just how skilled is this girl?_

Naruko seemed to be looking at him, although he couldn't know since he wasn't able to meet her eyes. She made a series of seals that started with Tiger- a fire style attack was incoming, then. After running through them, the hands were raised to her face level and she shouted, "Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!" A searing spray of flame launched forward and Kame had to leap to the side, all but tackling Gunaji out of the way.  _What the hell is she thinking, throwing that technique towards an incapacitated opponent!?_

Kame threw another airplane, but instead of dodging or intercepting it she threw a barrage of kunai at him. Incapacitated while blocking them with his own kunai, all he could do was watch helplessly as the plane trailed by, unable to detonate it.  _She's really, really good. But- She did just get cocky and leave the bomb there, which could cost her later._  His win condition had changed- now, it was to force her back onto the settled bomb.

Running to the left to avoid another Fireball Jutsu, he rapidly got some napalm paper and folded the plane that made the loop-de-loop in his hands, then tossed two of them forwards, then concentrated his chakra. By the time the planes finished the loop and returned to the space in front of him, he'd charged up enough. "Gale Force Jutsu!" the huge blast of wind pushed him backwards and out of range of her next attack, while also launching the planes forward far quicker than she could defend against. Smirking, he made a separate seal (for Firebombs, it was different than the snake seal that he used for the basic ones) and the two planes exploded, showering Naruko with flame.

_Wait, crap, I shouldn't have done that_. He remembered himself reproachfully thinking about how she'd done a similar thing mere minutes ago. His worry evaporated almost immediately, though, as a thrown kunai came arcing down towards him. Kame simply sidestepped it, peering closely to see that Naruko had dodged-  _She dodged backwards. I knew that it would cost her_ , he thought, and made the snake seal.

Immediately, he felt himself blasted to the side, pain shooting through every nerve in his right leg.  _What!?_  He landed a few feet away, panicking at the nerves screaming throughout his whole body now. He'd never been in this much pain, not even when he'd broken a rib, and it was all he could to do to keep from breaking down. However, his mind cleared a little bit as the feeling started to fade, replaced with a cool numbness.

Turning his head, he saw Keikiro standing beside him, concentrating as a green-blue light poured from her hands onto his leg. "K… Kei… Keikiro, what are you… doing…" Kame uttered through gritted teeth, but the Valley kunoichi just ignored him. The light intensified a little bit, and then her eyes fluttered and she keeled over.

_Does she know medical ninjutsu!? That's incredibly high-level stuff; has she been a prodigy this whole time?_  Kame tried to stand and found that he could now. His right pant leg was a tattered mess, but the flesh visible through the holes appeared raw yet undamaged. She'd definitely healed him somehow, but the details were for another time. Kame felt a wave of shame and anger tear through him-  _Naruko must have put my own paperbomb on that kunai and hidden it with a genjutsu. When I detonated it, I was the one who got blasted._

For her part, Naruko looked almost bored, spinning another kunai. For the first time since the fight began, she called out to Kame: "Are you about done? Is that  _really_  all you've got?"

Kame narrowed his eyes and started to snarl a retort but realized his mistake when he looked up into her eyes to say it. She smirked even wider and made a quick handsign, and suddenly Kame couldn't move his body at all.  _She got me with the genjutsu. Damn; I think we lost this now, there's not way-_

Then Haku came flying in from the side and literally leaped sideways feet-first in a midair kick, pounding Naruko in the midsection with both feet. The Uchiha girl's eyes widened and then Haku's legs extended, sending their target flying off to the side hard enough to crunch her into the wall. It was little wonder that she lost focus on her genjutsu, allowing Kame and Gunaji to move again. Haku straightened up and looked like she was about to say something, but then the Hyuga was on her in milliseconds, slamming a chakra-enhanced hand into her arm.

Haku turned to look at the boy with something approaching disdain in her eyes.  _I guess I was right; she does have immunity to the Gentle Fist._  The third Leaf ninja, though, was still a huge threat. He yelled out, "Wood Style: Rootspike!" and large wooden growths began to spit out from the ground and forced the Valley and Sand genin to dodge constantly. Kame hurled an airplane at the boy, but gasped when he looked down-  _Crap; I'm running out of paperbombs. I'm down to… two napalm, three wind, and four regular._

The plane flew straight and true, but the Byakugan-wielding Wood user seemed to know exactly what it did, sending a branch out from his defensive wall that impaled the plane, breaking the bomb before he could detonate it. He restrained himself from sending out another one, realizing he'd have to make them all count at this point, and turned to Haku, saying, "Thank for the save!"

She nodded and then turned her attention to the Hyuga, but then jerked forward as a kunai hit her in the shoulder. Whirling around, her eyes widened and then she stopped moving entirely.  _There's no way…_  but Kame saw his fears confirmed at the sight of Naruko, shaky but still on her feet and Sharingan still active.  _She's still conscious after that kick!?"_

Naruko made another series of seals and then spat out, "Fire Style: Running Flame!" A huge fire blazed to life before her and came curving over towards Haku, who was still out from the genjutsu. Kame's eyes widened in horror and he started to run towards her.  _She's already trapped in the genjutsu; why is Naruko attacking her?_  He could only watch as the fire blasted into Haku, launching her back into the wooden wall of the Namikaze. The fire curved again, now coming straight at him, and he was forced to roll to the right, still feeling it singe his leg.

The fire still came at him, faster and faster, but he managed to dodge it each time. However, he couldn't manage any offense around the constant assault, and even worse, the fire was getting faster.  _I can't keep this up; what do I do?_  The question was answered, though, when Naruko swore loudly and the fire spluttered out.  _What the hell happened…?_

Looking up, Kame saw the answer to his question. Keikiro and Haku, both unconscious, were laying  _inside_  the courtyard.  _We passed. We passed!_  Kame felt a huge grin split his face and he fist-pumped in victory.  _I guess that Sagino, Miriki and I did such a good job distracting the Leaf ninja that… Wait, how did the two unconscious people get into the courtyard?_  Suddenly, two little black forms came flying out from under the kunoichi and into Gunaji's waiting hand.  _He must have used the stones to move them._

Naruko swore again and glared at the two girls, kunai in hand. She hopped the fence and walked towards them, shaking slightly, and Kame started forward-  _She's unstable; she might actually…_ However, the Hyuga dashed over to her and said said something that actually seemed to make her  _more_ angry. Instead of attacking the two unconscious ninja, though, she stomped over to a corner of the courtyard and stood there glowering, quickly joined by her two teammates.

_Oh, she must have been the one carrying the tokens; so when she hopped the fence she finished the exam for her team…_  Kame was perturbed by how intense her rage at only getting  _eighteen_  points was. She won this stage by way more than she had to; why was she looking at Haku and Keikiro like they'd just killed her family in front of her?

_Wait- Haku and Keikiro!_  Kame dashed over to stand beside his downed teammate, feeling a sharp spike of fear at the sight of her unconscious. She'd been struck from the front by Naruko's flame jutsu, and it showed- there were serious burns on her stomach and thighs. "Medical ninja? Anyone!?" Kame felt the panic show in his voice, but there was with his teammate lying injured on the ground in front of him he honestly couldn't care less.

The door to the courtyard was knocked open and a few medical ninja stepped out, carrying a stretcher. Kame could only watch as they loaded Haku onto it and walked back out, hoping that they could help her when he couldn't.  _I failed… for all of my planning, my paperbombs, my… everything, I'm too weak._  He let himself drop to his knees, putting his head in his hands.  _We had more numbers, we had surprise, and… we still lost. I got injured, Haku got injured. How the hell are we ever going to beat these people?_

Miriki nudged him with a foot, smiling way too much for the situation at hand.  _I'm not in the mood for your stupid jokes, Miriki, so take-_  "We'll be okay, Kame." Kame looked up to see his Hatogan still active.  _He can see my fears…_ "We passed this test, and we'll pass the next one. Haku's not going to die, and that Naruko girl isn't a demigod… although, to resist my charms, she's damn well close to one..."

Kame gritted his teeth, but his jaw dropped when he saw Miriki walk over towards the Leaf team. He was forced to jump to his feet and dash to try and stop the boy, but was once again too slow to do anything but listen. "So, Naruko, that's a pretty nice genjutsu you got there, huh?"

Her eyes flared and she spat back, "Nice enough to take out two of you and get eighteen tokens, loser."

Miriki raised his eyebrows and held up his hands in a placating gesture. "Hey, hey, we're all friends here, right? No need to flip out on me, babe."

She started angrily towards him but was stopped by the Hyuga boy holding her arm. He looked at her and said, "Please, Naruko, calm down. We won the round, by six times their score. That's enough, right?"

Miriki looked at the boy, then at the girl, and then back again, a grin spreading across his face. "Ohhh, I see… That's your secret." When the two of them looked confusedly at him, he actually laughed. "Not many women can resist my advances, but I see that you already had a lover… my bad, my bad, I should have been trying a lot harder."

The Hyuga boy flushed bright red and started to say something to Miriki, but Naruko beat him to the punch. "Shut the f… I swear to god, if you don't shut your damn mouth, I'll… You're an untalented waste of oxygen from a no-name clan in the middle of the desert, so get that cocky smirk off of your face and show some respect."

Miriki, if anything, smiled  _wider_. "Hey, that's some indecent language from an important heir to Leaf village royalty, no? I think you need your mouth washed out." Something happened, and then Naruko gagged, spitting on the ground in front of herself and cursing wildly.

"What the… You…." She seemed to figure it out and straightened back up, eyes wild.  _Miriki, if you push her any further, she'll…_  Kame realized what his teammate was doing.  _This is his own way of taking revenge for Haku. He's always been more of a talker than a fighter, I guess it figures that he'd find a way to make people that upset with just his words._

Miriki rolled his eyes and started to turn and walk away. "The whole forest and even this courtyard are plastered with video cameras. Wouldn't want all the gathered jonin to see you lose your shit after being taunted… oh, wait, it's too late for that one. Good luck making chunin when a rank genin can make you froth at the mouth." As he stepped away, Naruko's hand twitched and she seemed to be teetering on the bare edge of doing something violent, but with her teammates restraining her and all of the jonin watching, she reluctantly turned back to her own squad.

Kame let the tiniest of smiles creep onto his face. "Miriki, I have to say, you're  _really_  good at that."

He shrugged. "There's a reason my clan is still in the Hidden Sand without producing ninja. The Hatogan is better in a business meeting or diplomatic mission than in a battle."

"What do you mean?" Kame didn't see how altering senses would be useful in a casual, conversational setting.

"Well, I just used it on Naruko…" He wasn't getting it.

"No; but why would making them taste soap be useful on a diplomatic mission?"

Miriki seemed to finally figure out the argument and rolled his eyes. "No, not that, idiot. I mean that I looked into her mind; she's deadly afraid of failing the chunin exams. Or, at least, she was… Now she's just angry at me, and you, and Haku. I don't need Hatogan to see that."

Kame shook his head.  _She demolished this test and passed with eighteen tokens; why the hell would she be afraid of failing the exams!?_  His thinking was cut short by the arrival of another squad in the training yard. Turning around, he saw Kosu, Zandeina, and Dako all stepping through the fence gate.  _Okay, so that's four teams now._ Zandeina dropped a pile of five tokens, which meant…  _There's one token left. Whoever got that one will be the last team to pass._

Kame wondered who it would be, but groaned internally as he looked up and saw Tetsute walking towards the courtyard, followed by Rakuyo and Genji.  _Why the hell… Why did it have to be them?_ Tetsute stepped through the gate, head downcast, probably beating himself up over his single token. The second Rakuyo and Genji made it through behind him, the gate snapped shut and Metal Lee appeared in the middle of the courtyard.

"Greeting, genin teams! The teams that pass have now been decided, so congratulations to everyone here! The top team, with eighteen tokens, is team one from the Hidden Leaf, composed of Naruko Uchiha, Kakuzen Uzumaki, and Sureki Hyuga!" Naruko didn't move at all during the announcement, but Sureki smiled and Kakuzen simply nodded.

"In second place with five tokens, team four from the Cloud, composed of Dako Nakimoka, Zandeina Ryukana, and Kosu Iburi!" Zandeina shot a glare at the Leaf team, Dako grunted and nodded, and Kosu fist-pumped wildly.  _Ryukana… where have I heard that surname before…_ thought Kame. "In third place with three tokens, team eight from the Sand, composed of Kame Hakiara, Haku…" Metal paused, glancing at the paper, before clearing his throat and continuing. "And Miriki Kosuki!" Kame grinned and saw Miriki do the same.

"In fourth place also with three tokens (but a lower written test score), team five from the Hidden Valley: Gunaji Kokuseki, Sagino Kokuseki, and Keikiro Torrakku." Keikiro seemed to have recovered enough to sit up and wave weakly, her teammates surrounding her. "And finally, in fourth place with one token; team seven from the Sand: Tetsute Hasagi, Rakuyo Kuyanari, and Genji Sanakishi." None of them celebrated at all, Tetsute's hand visibly tightening on the single token he held.  _He's not going to take this well,_ thought Kame.  _Not only to barely get through, but to do worse than the people he looked down on and bullied…_

Metal put his hands on his hips and smiled widely. "Again, congratulations to all of you for getting this far! We will have a full day of down-time; after which you must all report to the Arena for one-on-one duels. Your opponents will be revealed to you once you have arrived, so prepare for all possible outcomes. Exit through this door when you're ready;" he pointed to a lower door that presumably led back into the village, "your sensei are waiting for you."

As Kame stepped forward towards the exit, he tried to bask in the glory that he'd felt when passing the first stage of the exam, but his mind was too focused on Haku to be happy.


	14. Chunin Exams Arc Vol 4

**Ninja Profile: Sureki Hyuga**

Ninjutsu: B  
Genjutsu: C  
Taijutsu: A  
Specialties: Jyuuken, Byakugan, Taijutsu

Description: Sureki Hyuga stand at a normal height, but is thin and frail despite much training. He bears a striking resemblance to his deceased relative Neji, especially when he dresses in the more traditional Hyuga whites and grays. He is usually quite cheerful and open in conversation, but quickly becomes reserved and awkward when negative emotions and topics come up.

Origin: Sureki Hyuga was born the child of Hanabi Hyuga and the heir to the Hyuga clan, but his Byakugan was weaker than it should have been. While still present, it lacked the acuity and range of stronger manifestations. Ashamed of his weak bloodline trait, he decided to make up for it by becoming the greatest master of Jyuuken ever born into the clan. From a young age through his academy graduation, he trained with anyone who would teach him until his precision and grace were unparalleled. Upon meeting his squadmates, Naruko Uchiha and Kakuzen Uzumaki, he quickly got along with them and soon their team performed well enough for their jonin to sponsor them into the chunin exams.

( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( )

Deihaka was beaming at them when they made it into the lobby.  _The only place that I've seen that overkill level of pride is in new parents._  He'd been talking to Senshiko, but as soon as they exited he darted over to them and held up his hands for high-fives.  _Wait, seriously?_  Kame complied, a bit put off by how childish his squad leader was acting.

Miriki, on the other hand, ran up and gave a full high-five to Deihaka, grinning like an idiot. "Yeah! We did it, sensei!"

"You bet you did it! It's all thanks to my incredibly amazing teaching skills. If I hadn't made all those great Executive Teacher Decisions, you all wouldn't be standing here!"  _Deihaka-sensei, what are you saying? Aren't teachers supposed to give the credit to their students?_  Kame shook his head in exasperation.

Miriki cocked his head. "You can't take  _all_ the credit, Deihaka-sensei."  _You're right, Miriki, we also-_ "If it weren't for my incredible leadership skills and genius-level intellect, then I don't think we could have passed either exam."

Deihaka nodded sagely. "Well done, Miriki." He turned to Kame, who was restraining himself from letting loose on the two of them in public.  _I think they're actually getting worse- or maybe Miriki is just infecting Deihaka-sensei bit by bit._  "Kame, I'm proud of you and Haku as well. Oh, speaking of Haku, you guys are probably worried about her; she was taken to the hospital, but she should be alright."

Kame, remembering something they'd been told at the very start of the exam, whirled around to confront Metal Lee, who had followed them out of the courtyard. "Metal Lee- er, Proctor. Will Naruko Uchiha be disqualified?"

Metal Lee appeared to freeze up, glancing briefly at the Leaf squad and then back at Kame. "Umm… I do not plan to disqualify her, because-"

Kame wouldn't listen to his excuses. "You don't plan to disqualify her? Why? Didn't you announce at the start of the exam that attempts to kill or injure other participants would be met with severe repercussions? Where are the repercussions for her attack on my immobile comrade?"

Metal was clearly nervous, glancing again at Naruko and then choking out a response. "I… do not see… any reason to disqualify… her-"

"Could it be because she's the pride and joy of your village? Or maybe this is just personal favoritism?" Kame challenged. Metal swallowed, but before Kame could press the point any further, Deihaka took him by the shoulder.

"Come on, Kame." He turned around, starting towards the door. "Let's go check on Haku in the hospital, okay?"

Kame nodded, although his heart still seethed with resentment for the bureaucratic and clearly political favoritism shown to his Leaf rival. They exited the building and then took a sharp right, going down a few blocks and drawing glances from the people on the streets.  _I guess they're not used to ninja wearing sand uniform, huh?_  In sharp contrast to the green and pocketed utility vests of the Hidden Leaf, Sand shinobi wore dark brown combat vests that were build more for protection than storage.

When they entered the hospital, an attendant seemed to recognize them and directed them down a short hallway on the ground floor. They passed by rooms cordoned off with cloth barriers, but Kame still got glimpses of a few of the Mist, Cloud, and Stone shinobi, none of whom looked all that harmed. However, at the end of the hallway, there was a far more serious-looking room behind a set of double-doors. The hospital worker stopped them outside and then entered. Minutes passed, and Kame grew more and more terrified.  _Those burns were pretty bad… and they happened during a genjutsu._ Although he knew from his studies that such an interaction wasn't anything special, his mind still ran rampant with theories.

It grew worse as the minutes stretched into hours, and he grew more and more terrified that something had gone wrong.  _Even simple surgeries can go horrifically wrong if the doctor makes an error… Haku was hurt on her stomach; what if they accidentally broke her internal organs!?_  It took an extreme conscious effort to sit still and wait, but wait he did. For once, Miriki didn't read his thoughts, and Deihaka didn't make any attempts to alleviate the stress. All three of them sat there, silent, for hours on end.

Eventually, the door opened back up, and standing in it was a woman that made Kame's heart briefly stop. Pink-haired, wearing a red robe and with a green diamond on her forehead, he knew about this kunoichi because he'd read her name at least a thousand time. He barely managed to squeak out, "Sakura…"

She gave him an odd look before turning to face Deihaka. "Alright, your charge is going to be just fine. She'll be up and about in a couple of minutes and should even be fine to compete in the tournament."  _That's a relief…_ "I heard what happened and I'd like to apologize for what my granddaughter did to your friend."

Kame looked up sharply.  _Granddaughter? Does that mean that Sarada Uchiha is Naruko's mother?_  Still, a burning question was in his mind, and before he could stop himself it turned to words. "Why? Why you? Why would they call you to treat Haku?"

"What!? I'm an incredibly accomplished medical ninja, you disrespectful whelp!" Sakura rolled up a sleeve and turning murderous.

Kame rapidly backed off, raising his hands in apology. "No, no, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way. I know you're an incredibly talented medical ninja, probably the most talented one ever besides your master Tsunade. But…" Sakura's face had softened a bit at the praise. "Why you? Haku's burns weren't life-threatening."

Sakura actually reddened a little bit and looked away. "I was called in to make sure that she could fight in the tournament."

_But why would-_  Kame realized in horror why Sakura had suddenly started looking nervous.  _Naruko, her granddaughter and one of the few remaining Uchiha, can't afford to have taken an opponent out of the tournament- then they can't pretend they aren't bending the rules. If Haku can't fight, then Naruko injured an opponent and should be disqualified._  He narrowed his eyes but didn't dare speak his mind before the legendary teammate of Naruto and Sasuke.

She seemed to grasp his understanding of the situation and sighed. "Naruko… she has a lot of pressure on her, and I think that you shouldn't push her so far that she'd-"

_That's it._  Kame interrupted the older ninja, unable to bite his tongue any longer. "She's unstable! Haku landed one hit on her, and in response Naruko trapped her in a genjutsu; but instead of leaving the defeated opponent be, she  _attacked my incapacitated teammate_. If you don't muzzle her soon, she's going to end up killing someone!"

Sakura breathed heavily and looked at him with barely hidden contempt. "You don't have the faintest clue about her situation, so stop passing judgement without knowing the full picture." With those words, she brushed past Kame and walked off down the hallway.

Kame turned to watch her leave, but a voice from behind him brought him eyes back around to the hospital room. "Hey, guys… I'm glad to see you…" Haku's voice was weak, weaker than he'd ever heard it. When he saw her, she had bandages wrapped all around her upper legs and midriff. She smiled at them, but even that was shaky and obviously forced.  _Haku, I… I shouldn't have let this happen._

Kame, Miriki, and Deihaka all rushed over to her bedside, with Deihaka asking the first question. "How do you feel? Did they heal all the burns?"

She nodded. "I think so… none of it hurts, anymore. I think I can…" She swung her leg over off of the bed and gasped in pain. "Agh! Okay, that's not happening."

Kame knitted his eyebrows in worry, hesitant to even touch the leg. "What's wrong? Is the burn still there?"

She shook her head. "Nah, but… the leg feels super sore. I guess that's from having the muscles rebuilt through healing jutsu, huh?" She moved across the other leg and, gritting her teeth, lifted herself off of the bed and onto her feet. "Nghh- Okay, I think I can move around, I'm just gonna have to walk it off."

Deihaka nodded, and then she turned around to rummage in her pack, removing another skirt and turning briefly to jerk her head towards the door of the room. Kame flushed bright red and hastily escaped, followed by the others, and after thirty seconds Haku followed. The medical bandages had been replaced with her normal athletic ones and over them she wore another purple skirt coming down to just above her knees.

She winced with each step at first, but as she made forwards progress the winces grew weaker and weaker until she stopped altogether. They stepped out into the street and Kame only just realized how late it was- they'd woken up very late during the exam, maybe around lunchtime (due to all of them having exerted themselves so hard during the first day). Still, it was hard to believe that six whole hours had gone by planning, fighting, waiting, and then sitting in the hospital.

Deihaka scratched his head and pointed off to their left. "All the jonin squad leaders watched the camera feeds together, and I met the Leaf one. He recommended a dinner joint, so if you guys want to go there…?"

Haku nodded eagerly. "Yes, please!"

Miriki, though, awkwardly put a hand behind his head and cleared his throat. "Actually, Deihaka-sensei, I have a dinner date with Keikiro that I need to be going on, so…"

Deihaka's eyes lit up strangely. "Oh… yes. Yes! We can ask the Valley genin to come with us and do a team dinner!" Miriki opened his mouth to protest, but it was too late. "Executive Teacher Decision; we're doing a team date."  _Oh…_ Kame realized why his sensei was acting so strangely.  _He just wants an excuse to go to dinner with Senshiko, doesn't he…_

They found the Valley genin near the inn that most of the exam participants were staying in, waving them over and pitching the idea. Keikiro had the same reaction as Miriki, but the lovebirds were overruled by an oddly-pleased-looking Senshiko. The two teams made their way across the town and eventually ended up walking into a place called Ichiraku Ramen.

It was a small place, with two tables and ten barstools. Deihaka sat down on the far left, graciously offering Senshiko the seat beside him. Keikiro and Miriki sat next, then Sagino claimed the other spot beside Miriki and Gunaji the spot beside Sagino. Kame sat next to Gunaji and Haku slid in beside him, leaving two empty seats to the right. Once they all got settled, an aging woman came out through a screen and smiled at them. "Welcome to Ichiraku Ramen, I'm Ayame, what can I get you?"

Kame took a look at the menu, seeing something called a 'Naruto Special'.  _Well, obviously I'm getting that_ , he thought, holding up the menu and pointing at it. "Can I get one of these?" Ayame nodded. Haku ordered  _three_  more of them, and Gunaji ordered only one. While the others ordered their food, Gunaji turned towards Kame and proffered a hand.

"Congrats on getting through stage one, man."

Kame smiled and returned the favor, giving him a handshake. "You too. Thanks for helping us out against the Leaf team."

Gunaji nodded. "No problem… I'm just more afraid of how we're gonna take them on in the finals…"  _Yeah, no kidding,_ thought Kame.  _Haku killed a guy with one of her punches, but a direct hit against Naruko didn't even knock her out._  "Anyway, I was surprised we even made it through the written exam. Keikiro and Sagino both got seventeens, and I got a twenty, so we literally hit the bare minimum to pass."

Kame nodded. "We probably weren't going to make it, but Miriki's visual kekkegenkai got him a pretty decent score and I used my one cheat-for-free to give Haku my answers."

Gunaji eyes widened. "Ohh… and they couldn't punish you because of the… that's pretty smart!" Kame tried not to look too pleased.

"Well, I think the real praise is for you, dude. If you hadn't lifted Haku and Keikiro into the courtyard, we might not have made it through that last one." Now it was Gunaji's turn to flush a little bit and turn away at the returned compliment. "Honestly, do you want to meet up tomorrow and talk strategy? At this point, those Leaf guys are the biggest threat, so I think it's in both of our interests to share information on them."

The Valley genin appeared to consider that briefly, and then nodded. "Okay, let's go to one of the training fields- wait, we're staying in the same inn, right? Let's just meet up at nine o'clock?"

Kame winced. "What about seven?" A two-hour gap in the morning sounded pretty painful to schedule around, and he didn't want to wake up late and waste all that time. Gunaji nodded, and then their food arrived.

When Kame turned his attention to the ramen before him, his heart fluttered a little bit- this was the best-smelling ramen he'd ever… well, smelled. The gathered ninja all muttered a quick "Itadakimasu", clearly distracted by the amazing food. When he spooned up a bite and ate it, he wasn't disappointed.  _You can suck it, Tetsute,_  he thought.  _This is ten thousand times better than your family's cheap-ass stuff_.

He savored each bite, and was too busy eating to continue conversation. Beside him, Gunaji appeared to be doing the same thing. A glance to his left told another story, thought, as Haku was through a bowl and a half without showing signs of slowing. Kame actually froze as he watched his kunoichi teammate tear through the second bowl and start in on the third, which soon followed the other two and emptied. Even more ridiculously, she raised a hand and asked for  _another bowl_.

He turned to look at Deihaka.  _The other night, he acted like money was an issue… what's he gonna- wait, what the…_  His sensei was slightly flushed, and an empty bottle of sake on the table before him told the rest of the story.  _Deihaka-sensei is drunk._  Turning to look at Senshiko, Kame saw that the kunoichi jonin had drained three bottles and was also a little bit red in the face.  _I don't like where this is going._

Miriki and Keikiro were giggling and in their own little world, while Sagino held a conversation with her twin brother Gunaji, sparing an occasional longing glance at Miriki. In that moment, Kame felt strangely ecstatic, happy to be sitting in a ramen shop surrounded by friends and people so full of life.

The moment broke when he heard footsteps from behind him. Somehow, he knew what he'd find, but turned anyway and saw his worst fears confirmed- Naruko Uchiha was standing there, arms crossed and looking at them with derision and hatred. Kame was just about to return the glare and maybe even insult her when the curtains behind the three genin opened once more and he saw two adults standing there. All traces of any disrespectful plans gone, his heart skipped a beat when he saw who they were:

Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha stood in the doorway, the former dressed in orange and smiling happily while the latter wore black and had a much more restrained expression.  _I… they… it's really them…_  Kame felt his mouth flop open but couldn't close it; two of his idols were standing right in front of him,  _looking at him_ , and all he could do was stare at them with widened eyes.  _Come on, Kame, say something!_  He squeaked out, "Welcome to Ichiraku Ramen!"  _No, not that, you god damn idiot._

Naruko's glare shifted to more disgusted than hateful, while Sasuke raised an eyebrow at him, arms crossed. Naruto, on the other hand, grinned even wider and stepped forward to offer a handshake, saying, "Sand and Valley shinobi inviting me into my own hometown's ramen shop? Well, consider me welcomed!"

Kame stared at the man's hand, still not quite registering what was going on. "I… I can't…" He shook his head, still looking at the hand.

"Why not?" Naruto's smile weakened slightly.

"Be- Because I- I'm not worthy!" Kame bowed his head and stared at the ground.  _Can I embarass myself any more in front of Naruto and Sasuke?_ "You're the hero of the ninja world, the tailed-beast-tamer and jinchuriki of the strongest biju, the ninetails! You defeated Madara Uchiha, Kaguya Otsusuki, and all of the Akatsuki; and you are the hero of  _my_  hero, Gaara… I don't deserve to shake your hand!"

Naruto chuckled a little bit and then broke out into a full laugh, turning to face Sasuke. "Sasuke, you hearing this?"

"Yeah, I'm hearing all of those empty words," Sasuke drawled. "They're clearly misinformed if  _you're_  the hero of the ninja world. I was right there fighting Kaguya with you, wasn't I?"

Kame interjected. "But you're no less impressive, Sasuke! Your clan is legendary, and you are possibly the strongest member ever. You defeated Orochimaru of the sannin in single combat, fought Naruto to a stalemate, and helped in the defeat of all of those enemies I credited to Naruto…"

Sasuke finally cracked a smile, but Naruko's expression somehow soured even further. She sighed, "Grandfathers, can we get out of here?"

"Why?" Naruto hungrily glanced at the ramen they were eating.

"Because these losers are taking up the whole bar, so we might as well just go somewhere else. Besides, this kid can praise you all he wants, but he'd just a suck-up spewing empty words. He lost  _hard_ to me during the exam second stage."

Naruto's smile didn't waver. "But they're  _nice_  empty words, dearest. Besides, this is the reason they added the tables." He slid into one of the tables, motioning for Naruko to do the same. "This is your victory dinner, don't ruin it just because others also enjoy the ramen at Ichiraku."

Naruko poorly concealed a pout but sat anyway, and Ayame shuffled over to take their order. Kame tried to turn back and eat his food, but his eyes kept drifting off to focus on the living legends only a few short feet away from him. After minutes, he finally resumed his eating, forcing himself to consume the food, but choked on it and spat a whole mouthful back into the bowl when Naruto's voice came at him: "Hey, kid, you said that you knew Gaara? How is he; it's been a while!"

Kame spun around in time to see Sasuke roll his eyes and say, "You idiot, Gaara's coming anyway soon. The Kage gather to watch these tournaments, which you should know  _because you are one!_ "

Naruto shrugged. "Yeah, I know, but I kinda want to know what I'm walking into."

Kame found his voice. "Uhmm…Lord Gaara has been fine when I've met him…" Afraid of disappointing the Hokage, he searched his mind for more to say. "He's actually been a little bit stressed out lately, because Ha-"  _Shit! I almost told him way too much!_  Kame remembered Gaara's explanation about the power balance between the villages, and he clammed up almost immediately.

Naruto raised an eyebrow but the brief exchange ended when Ayame gave him his food, so Kame took the chance to whirl back around and finish off his ramen. Haku gave him an incredibly hard to read look, but then finished her own bowl of ramen (her sixth one). Deihaka, now swaying and a little bit unsteady, was polishing off a fourth bottle of sake, while Senshiko's spot on the counter was littered with at least ten empty bottles. Deihaka was staring at the woman's chest, and she didn't seem to mind, putting an arm over his shoulder and pulling him in tight.

Kame blushed and looked away, noticing that Miriki and Keikiro had both finished and were now holding hands.  _Ugh._  Gunaji was staring at Sasuke intently, looking as amazed as Kame felt. After a few minutes of relative silence, Ayame walked up to their little group and laid a tab down on the counter.  _That's…_ Kame jolted back a little bit.  _Holy crap, that's 40,000 yen!? How the hell did we eat that much?_

Deihaka, now leaning on Senshiko and hiccuping, seemed to interpret the check as a signal to leave, and dragged Senshiko out the door. Gunaji, Keikiro, and Sagino followed their sensei, and Miriki tagged along with Keikiro.  _Wait a minute…_  Kame looked up, heart sinking, to see Ayame looking at  _him_  expectantly.  _Oh, crap…_  for the briefest of moments, he considered trying to fob the check off onto Haku, but the thought was gone almost as soon as it entered his mind and he reluctantly pulled the necessary money from his wallet.  _Well, there goes my pay for the last five missions…_

As he rose to exit, Naruko tossed a final double-edged comment at his back. "See you in a few days for a repeat, loser." Kame slowed down a little bit, but he wasn't about to fight her in the middle of the restaurant, so instead he just kept walking. He took a tiny bit of satisfaction in the immediate scolding from Naruto and Sasuke that followed her jab.

( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( )

Kame woke up the next morning a lot more refreshed than he thought he'd be, considering that he'd slept on the floor of their room. Upon arriving at the inn, Deihaka and Senshiko had claimed the room originally reserved for the Valley squad for themselves, leaving the six genin to find a way to split the three-bed room reserved for the Hidden Sand. This had almost immediately ended in the three kunoichi getting the beds, but Miriki had weaseled into sleeping beside Keikiro and Sagino had agreed to let her brother Gunaji in next to her.

Kame, on the other hand, hadn't had the nerve to ask Haku to share her bed, so he'd ended up alone on the floor.  _Although, it was surprisingly nice,_  he thought. When he sat up, he noticed that it was 6:30.  _Enough time for breakfast before me and Gunaji go practice._  Looking around, he saw that Sagino and Keikiro were sitting on their beds talking, while Haku was still sleeping, seemingly wearing only her bandages as pajamas. However, as soon as he stood up, Sagino darted over beside him. "Okay, you  _finally_  woke up. Now get out. Out!" She pushed him out of the room's door and into the hallway, where he stood in his Shukaku pajamas.  _Huh, maybe these things are unlucky…_

After a few minutes, the door opened back up to reveal the three kunoichi clad in their day clothes, Haku still blinking sleepily. "Alright, your turn," Sagino said, marching off towards the lobby. Kame hurriedly re-entered the room, got dressed, and grabbed a breakfast bar from his pack, then walked down into the lobby. Standing there already were Deihaka and Senshiko, standing abnormally close to one another and both seemingly nursing extreme hangovers.

Miriki and Keikiro were just walking out the door, and Kame didn't want to intrude on whatever was happening between his sensei and the Valley jonin, so he opted to walk over to Gunaji. He, Haku, and Sagino were having a conversation that Kame caught the tail end of. Sagino was gesturing towards Haku and saying, "Come on, bro, back me up here. She needs a new coat."

Kame looked over at the offending piece of clothing. It was a bit too small for her, and patched in places.  _She was wearing it five years ago in the Kazekage's vision…_   _It was too big for her then._   _Still, it probably has a hell of a lot of sentimental value to her if she's had it for that long…_  Haku looked self-consciously down at her coat and spoke awkwardly. "I… I like this coat, I kinda just want-"

Sagino just talked over the smaller girl. "Look, how about we go to a clothing store, and if you still want to keep it, then you totally can!" Haku seemed okay with that prospect, and so Sagino dragged her off, leaving Gunaji and Kame standing next to one another.

"So… do you want to head off to a training field…?" Kame offered.

"What? Oh, yeah, sure… I'm sorry that my sister hauled off your teammate just because she wants an excuse to go clothes-shopping." Kame smiled, thinking,  _so that's why…_

He and Gunaji stepped out onto the street and, through intuition and asking directions, made their way to the practice fields. On the way there they drew stares just like they had the day before.  _This must be a very tight-knit community if outsiders draw this much attention,_  Kame considered.  _Either that, or they're incredibly suspicious of ninja not in Hidden Leaf uniform; which is perfectly reasonable._

They chose one of the unoccupied practice fields and stood next to one another, Gunaji pulling out a few shuriken and taking practice throws at one of the targets. He was surprisingly good at it for someone whose ninjutsu technique basically invalidated the need for projectile weaponry. Kame pulled out a large sheet of extra paper and an inkwell, preparing himself to make a new batch of paperbombs.  _If I run out tomorrow, then there's going to be a huge problem._

Once they'd settled, Gunaji broke the silence. "I've spent a lot of time studying kekkeigenkai, and I know enough about the Sharingan to see that she's not your average user."

"No?" This was news to Kame.

"Yeah, she's… well, there's two possibilities. The first is that she's unlocked the Mangekyo sharingan; which is ridiculous at her age and also would blind her unless she took the eyes from another living Uchiha. Given the lack of other living Uchihas, I think it's safe to rule that one out." Kame nodded. "Therefore, the second possibility is that she's just an incredibly powerful user of the basic sharingan. The normal sharingan has a visual component and a hypnotic component, and I think that she's using an enhanced version of the hypnotic component in order to freeze us."

Kame nodded. "Okay…?"

"Therefore, I think I know how to… well, not beat her, but I know a weakness. The sharingan, apparently, drains a huge amount of chakra, and she has to have it out to sustain the paralyzing effect. Also, if she closes her eyes, you're unparalyzed briefly, so if you can look away in the split second she spends blinking, you can get out."  _Those are some incredibly difficult to exploit weaknesses,_  Kame thought.

_I guess I should spill what I know, huh?_  He turned towards Gunaji, hands still robotically grabbing, writing on, and then infusing chakra into the paperbombs. "My teammate, Miriki, has a visual kekkegenkai called- wait, what am I saying, he explained it to you already. Anyway, he says that Naruko is incredibly insecure about her skills and is terrified of losing, which explains a lot of her behavior.

"She's also demonstrated herself to be extremely mentally unstable, so I think another way of getting to her could be through taunting or embarrassing her in any way. In front of the gathered ninja, in such a public setting, it's practically guaranteed to make her lose her cool."

Gunaji nodded, suddenly looking thoughtful. "She also uses fire style, so if you have water release…"

Kame shook his head. "Nope, wind and fire."

Gunaji grimaced. "I got earth, and that's it."

Kame sighed. "What about her teammates? The Namikaze guy, Kakuzen, he has wood release…"  _That shouldn't be possible,_  Kame thought.  _I thought only Hashirama Senju had access to that kekkeigenkai._  "Anyway, he's pretty good with it for defense and offense."

Gunaji shrugged. "But you have fire release, so…"

Kame frowned. "But you don't…" He thought for a moment, and then sighed and reached into his pack. "Here, I have something for you." He grabbed all three of yesterday's Firebombs, handing them to Gunaji. "I made these; they have fire chakra instead of normal chakra in them. If you end up against him, use them."

Gunaji reached for them, but snapped his arm back. "No, I can't… It's your strength, if I were to win because of it…"

"Just take it." Kame pushed towards Gunaji. "You helped us with information before, so just access my help now."

The other boy accepted them, seemingly grudgingly. "Thanks."

Kame nodded, turning his attention to the last member of team one. "What about Sureki Hyuga? Haku dealt with him pretty easily, but that's because…"  _I can't just tell people about her weakness,_ Kame chided himself. "She has a great matchup with him."

The Valley genin just shrugged. "He's a taijutsu specialist who doesn't seem to have any speed specialties. Worst-case, he knows how to use rotation, but even then I'll just wear him down from a range."

The two lapsed back into silence, but that was quickly shattered by a familiar voice from behind them. "Oh, come on, that's selling me a little bit short, isn't it?"

Kame was on his feet in an instant, holding his brush like a weapon, while Gunaji had rolled backwards and assumed a taijutsu stance. Standing a few feet away was Sureki Hyuga, who wore an exaggerated pouting expression. "I mean, you guys barely traded like two sentences. Writing me off so quickly?"

Kame opened his mouth but froze, unsure if he should apologize, trash-talk, or walk away. Gunaji seemed equally confused, so it was Sureki who eventually broke the awkward silence. "Aww, c'mon guys, I'm just kidding. Good job getting through the gate yesterday!"

Kame peered at him suspiciously. "Thanks…? You guys did alright as well…"

The Hyuga sighed. "This is unbelievably awkward… I think I'll just get to practicing, if you don't mind?" Kame shook his head, but internally he was perplexed.  _Is this guy seriously going to practice right next to us? Where we can see his moves?_

Sureki's pale eyes suddenly hardened, veins appearing around them, and then his face twisted into a smile and he waved to somebody walking up the hill. "Lee-sensei! It's good to see you!"

_Metal Lee is coming, too?_  Kame stood up, packing up his paperbombs and trying to see what the other boy's Byakugan-enhanced eyes had picked out. After a few seconds, he finally landed on it and gasped, all previous training forgotten.  _That's… that's really him, this time!_

Rock Lee was running up the hill in the Lee clan's green bodysuit, smiling and waving back to Sureki. "It is good to see you as well, Sureki! You appear to have arrived early for our lesson… who are these people with you?"

Kame, after clamming up last night, decided that he had to learn to treat even well-known ninja like the humans they were. He cleared his throat, starting to formulate a response, but Sureki beat him to it. "This is Kame, and this is Gunaji. They're Sand and Valley genin who made it through the chunin exams!"

Rock Lee nodded. "Are they here to learn the secrets of the Power of Youth?"

Sureki chuckled nervously. "No, I don't think so, sensei… in fact-"

Kame interrupted the other boy. "How long is your lesson?"

"Umm… we should be done by… twelve-ish. Why?" Sureki appeared confused.

"Because I have a friend who is the pupil of Shira." At the sound of his old friend's name, Rock Lee turned sharply to face Kame. "And I think she'd really love to meet the man that her sensei is always talking about."

"Oh, okay… sure. For now, though, I'm gonna make the most out of my four hours." Sureki assumed a ready stance, and Rock Lee did the same. Kame pulled back out his paperbomb-making supplies, absentmindedly returning to his task while the Leaf's taijutsu master and his apprentice sparred at lightning speed.

Right off the bat, Kame could tell that in terms of speed Sureki was nowhere near Haku. The boy's movement, while quick, were still moving at a snail-like pace when compared to the wickedly fast attacks of his teammate. However, the frail-looking boy seemed to make up for it with extreme skill and perfect technique. Minimalist movements decreased the necessary amount of speed to the point that he could keep up with the godlike Rock Lee.

The green-clad jonin, however, was a completely different story. His movements were faster and stronger Haku's, maybe even faster than Shira's.  _So this is how he made jonin-rank without any ninjutsu or taijutsu,_  thought Kame.  _He's a monster._  Sureki's extreme skill was no match for Lee's brute physical prowess, but the elder ninja was pulling his blows. Every time he would have landed a hit, he stopped millimeters away from his student and then returned to a neutral stance. Each time this happened, he'd also give the Hyuga a bit of advice on how to improve his taijutsu.

This went on for hours. Kame ran low on chakra and had to stop making bombs, but his stores were well replenished. He had thirty normal paperbombs, ten weakened ones, ten firebombs, ten windbombs, and three smokebombs, likely more than enough for the maximum of four fights that he'd be asked to participate in. After four hours, Sureki and Lee disengaged from their sparring, the former clearly winded and panting.

"Excellent work today, Sureki! The Power of Youth flows ever stronger through your veins, and each day you grow closer to Neji in strength!" Rock Lee and Sureki both bowed, and then they turned to face Kame. "Now then, where is this friend you speak of?" Rock Lee raised one bushy eyebrow.

"Uhh… she went out clothes-shopping, so… do either of you know of any shinobi clothing stores in the Leaf?" The two Leaf ninja shared a look, nodded to each other very seriously, and then wordlessly led the way back down the trail and into the city. Kame quickly shoved his materials into his bag and darted off in pursuit, but Gunaji waved goodbye.

"I think I'm gonna stay here and practice some more." Kame shrugged, turning to follow the strange pair of Leaf shinobi down into their village.


	15. Chunin Exams Arc Vol 5

**Ninja Profile: Kosu Iburi**

Ninjutsu: B  
Genjutsu: B  
Taijutsu: D  
Specialties: Incorporeal Form, Evasion, Stealth

Description: Kosu is a slightly short, normally built boy with medium-length white hair and light skin with freckles, a mixed bag of the traits of his Cloud village father and villageless mother. He usually wears casual gray clothing underneath his requisite Cloud shinobi vest, and his eyes are brown. He is absurdly positive about most things and is rarely mean to anyone.

Origin: Kosu is the sole child of Yukimi Iburi, the last member of a clan that was experimented upon by Orochimaru. Their clan's ability to transform into smoke was a curse in disguise, as many younger members were unable to control it and died when wind would disperse them. Eventually, Yukimi overcame the crippling weakness and left to travel the world, eventually settling in the Village Hidden in the Clouds and marrying a Cloud shinobi. Kosu inherited her talent with the Iburi Kekkegenkai and chose to follow the same course as his mother, becoming a shinobi in order to travel around and see the world.

( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( )

Kame had to jog to catch up to Sureki and Rock Lee, but eventually he managed to close the gap. Still silent, they walked straight into the downtown district and ended up in front of a store called 'Shinobi Utility Wear'.  _Huh, that's a pretty… direct… name,_  thought Kame, but shrugged and entered anyway. Inside, he saw a wide variety of bandages, vests, belts, pouches, and anything else a ninja would ever need to wear.

Towards the back of the shop, in the coat section, Kame spotted Haku, Sagino, Miriki, and Keikiro admiring a few designs. "Hey, Haku!"

She turned to wave back, but then she caught sight of Rock Lee and flashed across the store in milliseconds. "Is… are you… Rock Lee…?" Kame was reminded of his own reaction when he'd seen Naruto and Sasuke.

Rock Lee nodded. "Kame tells me that you are the heir to Shira's Nindo?"

"Yes!" Haku was breathing quickly, staring at Rock Lee like she was trying to figure out if he was real. "Shira-sensei has told me so much about you, Lee-senpai!" She bowed a few times. "I am beyond honored to finally meet you- you are my hero!"

Rock Lee slowly broke out into a smile. "Shira was a great ninja, so you must also be a great successor! What led to your meeting?"

Haku, for once, didn't seem to mind telling another person about her struggles. "I… since I was little, I couldn't use any ninjutsu or genjutsu whatsoever, so I focused on my taijutsu. When my chakra couldn't escape my body, I guess it turned inwards and strengthened me, so taijutsu was always my strong suit…" She turned and nodded at Kame. "Kame spoke with the Lord Kazekage about my situation, and he told us about Shira. After that, we went to Shira's village and convinced him to return to the Sand."

Rock Lee nodded. "Excellent! How is Shira?"

Kame glanced at Haku. "He's… he's doing pretty well, considering… well, his wife, Yome, died. We found him in mourning and he's decided that he'll pass his nindo and secret techniques onto Haku before he joins her."

Rock Lee's face fell at the news that his friend had lost a companion. "I am sad that he lost Yome, but also glad that you could give him purpose once again."

Haku gasped. "Oh, yeah! I remember him saying that if I made it into the final round of the chunin exams, he'd come to watch! You and him could meet back up." That idea perked up the jonin immediately. "Oh, he also asked me to have you look at a technique he taught me, called the Sand Devil. Shira said that it's his own personal adaptation on the Hidden Lotus of your clan."

Rock Lee looked overjoyed at that idea. "Yes! I would love to see this 'Sand Devil'! But first, I notice that you are in this clothing store, which means that you are searching for something better to wear."  _Oh, no,_  Kame cringed.  _I think I know where this one's going._  "May I recommend my clan's secret, breathable-yet-protective Super Ninja Bodysuit!" He somehow produced a green jumpsuit out of thin air and waved it in front of Haku.

She opened her eyes wide at the sight of it. "Wow, is it really that amazing?"

He nodded, smile growing even larger. "The fabric used is stretchable, but still thick enough to provide  _more_  defense than normal ninja clothing! In addition, the Lee Clan Super Ninja Bodysuit is breathable, decreasing excess sweating, while also allowing maximum flexibility!"

Kame couldn't bring himself to stop the conversation- it was like watching an out-of-control cart tumbling down a hill. Before Haku could press it any further, though, Miriki interjected. "Hey, I think that's great. All the girls- I mean, I think everyone here could use one!"  _Miriki, you son of a- Throwing me under the bus just so you can get Sagino and Keikiro into skintight jumpsuits!?_  For some reason, Miriki never flirted with Haku like he did every breathing female within a kilometer radius.

Rock Lee ended up being the one who saved the day, though, yanking away the bodysuit and shaking his head. "No, these are only for the ninja who embrace the full Power of Youth like Gai-sensei taught."

Miriki looked crestfallen, stepping away, but Kame breathed a silent sigh of relief.  _Maybe next time, pervert._  However, Haku still pointed at the suit and asked, "Can I get that in purple?"

Rock Lee considered it for a second before nodding. "Yes! Although the Lee Clan Super Ninja Bodysuit is traditionally green, you and Shira may bear your own colors!" He marched over to the shopkeeper and gave a few instructions. The elderly woman nodded and disappeared into the back room, then came out almost immediately three folded purple bodysuits in her hands.

_Wait, Haku's actually going through with this…_  Kame watched as she paid the woman and packed away her new clothing.  _Oh, no…_  Rock Lee gave her a double thumbs-up which she returned, and then he asked her, "What weight does Shira have you working at?"

"Huh?" Haku looked confused at that question.

"Your leg weights, how heavy are they?"

"What leg weights?"

Rock Lee actually staggered back a step, seemingly horrified at this development. "What!? Shira does not have you working with leg weights yet? This is terrible, I must speak with him as soon as possible- but for now," he turned to the shopkeeper, "I'd like a set of leg weight holders, leg warmers, and the corresponding weights from twenty to fifty pounds!"

The woman nodded once again, retreated into a hidden room, and emerged with the correct items.  _How is she doing that? Does she use a jutsu to size these things, or…?_  While Kame pondered the question, Rock Lee walked Haku through equipping and safely using the leg weights. Her leg warmers were black instead of orange, and they fit nicely over her boots. She took a few experimental steps around the shop, shaking her legs a little bit, and then smiled. "Thank you, Lee-senpai!"

Rock Lee nodded. "It is no problem! My mission is to make sure that the Power of Youth explodes forth from everyone that it can, and you are one of the lucky few!"  _He's… somehow even more eccentric than his ninja profile made him out to be_ , Kame thought.  _Why are all the jonin such strange people?_

Haku pointed out the door. "Now can I show you the Sand Devil, Lee?"

"Indeed you can, Haku!" Rock Lee and Haku suddenly dashed out the door, presumably towards the training field. Kame was about to tag along when he felt someone grab his shoulder, turning to see that it was Sureki.

"What's the matter?" The Hyuga boy had his byakugan out and seemed… almost worried.

He turned to Kame. "Do you know  _how_  Haku lost access to her chakra?"

Kame shook his head. "No, not really. Why? Did you see something?"

Sureki grimaced. "Yeah, and it's… it's bad…" His face was halfway between somber and scared. "Normally, in people like Lee-sensei, you see that their chakra coils are underdeveloped. They just don't have enough chakra to focus any in for jutsu, which even I can see with the byakugan."  _Is he poor at byakugan?_ The way he'd phrased that was strange. "But Haku isn't like that. Instead, I can see something else's chakra forming a seal over most of her tenketsu points. I got a feelin earlier during the fight, but just now I confirmed it: Someone definitely sealed off her chakra network."

_What? Did her family do it? How and why…_  Kame's mind raced, but he saw Rock Lee and Haku disappearing around a street corner outside. "This is a lot to think about… thank you for telling me, though. I'll see you later, Sureki!" He jogged off after them.

By the time he caught up, they were already at the practice field and Haku was just finishing with removing her weights. "Okay, Lee-senpai, I'll try to pull the hits, but-"

Rock Lee shook his head furiously. "No! Do not do that, hit me with all of your youthful energy. I will be able to handle it, trust me."

Haku looked worried but nodded, dropping into her taijutsu stance. Ever since she'd started working with Shira, her stance had changed drastically: She would stand with a slightly bent back leg and a straight front one, sideways to her opponent. Her back arm would be pointed away and then bend back next to her face, while her front arm went low, almost to her knee.

Lee also assumed a more normal stance, and then Haku blurred forward and, in one of the same moves she'd used against Deihaka in the graduation test, went under his arms and upside down. She kicked up a leg into his chin, knocking him flying, and then leapt oddly so that she spun wildly in the air. By the time Lee stabilized in mid-air, she was somersaulting beside him and then extended her leg, slamming the heel down into his midriff. Just like Tetsute, the jonin was launched towards the ground, and Haku kept spinning as she fell, repeating the leg strike on the grounded Lee right as he bounced up slightly.  _Haku, that's too much-_  thought Kame, worried that she might actually harm the aging Lee.

Seemingly unworried, she leaped back, resuming a stance, and then Lee stood up and dusted himself off like nothing had happened. He smiled at her and nodded approvingly. "That is an excellent technique, Haku. However, for the initial strike, you only used the power of your legs to launch me. If you put your hands on the ground and push with your arms as well, then you can launch your opponents higher."

Haku nodded. "Thank you, Lee-senpai."

( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( )

After they'd exchanged more taijutsu techniques, eventually Haku and Rock Lee said their goodbyes. Kame couldn't squeeze in any more training with most of his chakra gone, so he simply wandered the village. Haku seemed content to come along, leg weights back on, as he explored the place.

They ran into a few other ninja that Kame dimly remembered, but no one that he'd studied extensively. Eventually, the time came for the Kazekage's arrival, which Deihaka had asked them all to be present for, so the pair went to the main gate to stand respectfully before Lord Gaara. Besides the usual jonin and ANBU guards, Kame noticed several familiar faces in the procession: Kankuro and Shira had come out to watch their apprentices.

Gaara met and publicly shook hands with the Hokage, and then the two retired to the Hokage's tower. Shira immediately peeled off and exchanged a few words with Haku, after which they charged off (probably in search of Rock Lee). Kame was left standing next to Miriki, who winced and turned around at the sight of someone coming towards them. The newcomer was tall, black-haired and blue-eyed like Miriki, and wearing a white formal uniform. "Miriki," they said in an aristocratic voice, "Come here, boy. Your parents have tasked me with making sure that you remain presentable  _outside_  of your little ninja games at the very least."

Miriki sighed and turned around. "So you're my babysitter?"

"Only if you choose to behave like a baby, cousin."  _So this is a Kosuki, Miriki's cousin._  The young man looked to be seventeen or eighteen, several years older than Miriki. "Come over here, you can't just trample around this foreign town like a vagrant."

Miriki glared but did as he was bid, following the man off towards a much nicer hotel than the inn that they'd stayed in the night before. Kame was now alone- Deihaka had almost immediately peeled off to go chat with Senshiko.  _This is getting out of hand; he's lapsing in his duties as our teacher now._  Kame brightened up a bit when he saw Kankuro approach, waving and greeting him. "Master! Welcome to the Hidden Leaf, was your travel okay?"

Kankuro grunted. "It could have been worse. Now, how did the combat test go? Explain to me everything you did with Wasp, now."

Kame nodded, then recounted all of the actions and orders he'd put Wasp through. Kankuro appeared mildly proud when Kame told him about his idea to put the Wind Barrier Jutsu around Wasp, and them rolled his eyes and returned to a disappointed look when informed about how it had ripped off the puppet's wings. At the news that Wasp had actually been broken, Kankuro breathed out a long sigh. "Kame, if you broke it the first time you used it-"

"Hey, someone  _else_  broke it, master. Besides, it couldn't be helped, I used Wasp to shoot them but it turned out to be a clone, and then they broke it with a kunai strike."

"So what you're saying is, it's not your fault because you fell for a Shadow Clone Jutsu…?" Kankuro was completely unimpressed.

Kame coughed awkwardly, seeking a way out from the conversation. "Oh, wait, I still have the broken parts, thought… so…"

"You want me to fix it? Won't you just break it again?" Kankuro crossed his arms and looked at him expectantly.

"I… I…" Kame tried but failed to think of anything he could say to change his Master's mind- but then relaxed once he saw the man laughing.  _Oh, he's messing with me…_

"Take me to the inn, Kame. I'll fix it, if only because I want a chance to witness your skill level first-hand." They went to the small inn, where Kankuro used a summoning jutsu to get a toolkit. It only took him about twenty minutes to fix and then reseal Wasp, after which he departed to stay with the Kazekage. Kame was left alone and found himself wandering back to the practice field absentmindedly.

He stayed there for the rest of the day, working on new Jutsu and techniques until the sun was gone from the sky. Eventually, he headed back to the inn and found the other genin fast asleep, settling into his bedroll and laying down to rest among them.

( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( ) - ( )

_This is it,_  thought Kame as he walked up to the waiting area.  _The final test._ All of the qualifying genin now stood on a platform built into the wall of the arena, looking down into the battlefield. The battlefield itself was a circle, probably a hundred meters in diameter, with a large swath covered in trees. A small, artificial stream trickled across it as well,  _probably to give some water users a fighting chance,_ Kame considered. The walls of the arena curved upwards and inwards a little bit, and then the observers were above them.  _There's probably… what, a couple thousand people? To watch genin matches?_

Up in the stands, there was a smaller balcony that he knew must house the Hokage, Kazekage, Taniakage, and Raikage.  _I guess it's good for Gaara that he had both of his teams pass, huh?_ Kame pondered the village's relationships for a moment, as the proctor had yet to appear.  _After the Fourth Shinobi World War, there's been a shaky peace between all of the villages, but I still get the feeling that any of them would happily see their rivals wiped out._  Kame remembered meeting Gaara and Naruto in person, and revised his judgement.  _Okay, maybe not the Sand or the Leaf, but…_

He'd looked into all the sitting Kage, although some had less readily available information than others. The Taniakage in particular was almost a complete mystery, like several of the smaller villages' kage- they had survived for many years by flying under the radar, and through a system of mutually assured destruction.  _If the Sand attacked the Valley,_ Kame reasoned,  _then we'd almost definitely win… but then any of the other Great Villages could come in and destroy us._   _It's what happened to Heat Devil Village, after all._

Eventually, a door opened and a jonin strode out onto the practice field. Kame didn't recognize them, and they weren't wearing any recognizable clan markings or distinctive clothing. All in all, it was a little bit refreshing to see a jonin-level ninja that wasn't a complete nutcase. After the man reached the center of the field, he bellowed out (probably using some sort of voice amplification jutsu) "Greetings, gathered observers and shinobi! Welcome to the culminating final of this year's chunin exam!"

A scattered round of applause died out, and he continued. "The tournament will follow a bracket system, where the winners of four smaller pools will battle in twos and then finally the two best shinobi will fight one another!" He stepped back and made a few handsigns, then a visible image flickered into being on the ground before him.  _Is he some sort of… leadership specialist? What's with all the presentational jutsu?_  "Without further ado, here is the lineup for the exams!"

Kame peered anxiously at the image. Pool one was comprised of two matches: One between Haku and Zandeina, and one between Tetsute and Kosu. The winners of those smaller ones would likely fight one another. Pool two's matchups were Sureki vs Sagino and Kakuzen vs Gunaji.  _Ouch, that's an incredibly bad matchup for Sagino,_  thought Kame. In the other half, pool three had Miriki vs Rakuyo, and then just Dako.  _There's only fifteen, so I guess he just gets a pass on the first round?_

The final pool, pool four, consisted of Naruko vs Keikiro and Kame vs Genji.  _I'm probably going to end up fighting Naruko early on, then…_  Kame readied himself mentally for that. The spectators clapped with each revealed name, and then the projection split into four separate copies and spread out onto the walls, spaced equidistantly around the battlefield. The proctor turned towards the balcony where the genin stood and called out, "Haku of the Hidden Sand, and Zandeina Ryukana of the Hidden Cloud! Please descend and prepare for battle!"

_Here we go,_ Kame worried. He turned and tried to give Haku as reassuring of a smile as he could manage at the moment, watching her disappear down the steps. Zandeina chose a different tactic and simply ran straight down the arena wall, as if to reinforce her and Haku's skill gap.  _Wait… Ryukana… I remember where I heard that name now! This is very bad…_  Kame's eyes drifted up to the Kage's box and where the Fifth Raikage, Darui  _Ryukana_ , sat.

_Haku's up against Hidden Cloud royalty… and her ace in the hole is a lightning technique, but she's up against another lightning specialist. In fact, that blue lightning I saw during stage two was probably the famous Storm Release kekkegenkai…_ Kame bit his lip nervously, considering Haku's situation.  _With no jutsu, she has to close in to close range, but from what I've seen Zandeina is great at close-quarters incapacitation._  Standing there facing each other, they seemed like polar opposites: Haku, standing pale and wearing bandages with a top and skirt (she'd agreed to only wear the Lee Clan Super Ninja Bodysuit during training) stood with a distinctive taijutsu stance. Zandeina, on the other hand, was covered head to toe in her heavy gray cloak and stood leaning to one side, apparently uninterested in the task at hand.

"Alright, contestants… Go!" The proctor shouted the word and then leaped back, leaving the space between the two kunoichi empty- but not for long. Almost immediately, Zandeina shouted, "Storm Style: Crackling Doom!"  _So the voice amplification jutsu affects the contestants as well, then,_  Kame realized. The distinctive blue lightning streamed forward from her fingers and closed in on Haku, who was forced to dart backwards awkwardly. At about twenty meters, though, the lightning fizzled out.  _So she has a maximum range that Haku can try to avoid…_

Haku continued moving backwards until she was near the wall, and then entered a long dash going clockwise around the edge of the arena.  _She's not generating any offense… yet._ Kame approved the choice,  _it's a good idea to get your opponent to reveal as many cards as possible before you tip your own hand._

Zandeina growled and threw out another of her Storm attacks, but at Haku's range she was able to evade it with ease. Finally, Haku reached the treeline and then leapt up into the leaves, concealing herself from view.  _If her win condition is to close to melee range, and Zandeina doesn't know that, then she might have a chance for a sneak attack. But… that's pretty hopeful. This is a shinobi, and an attack from the trees is almost a staple._

As he'd assumed, Zandeina remained cautious to enter the treeline, stalking around the perimeter and searching for a glimpse of her opponent. A few times, she unleashed storm release attacks, but nothing hit and the match remained a stalemate. The stalemate broke, though, when she made the mistake of stopping to remove her hooded cloak. Haku was upon her in a millisecond, throwing out a vicious uppercut- which crunched into the large rock Zandeina had replaced herself with. The rock shattered into pieces, drawing a gasp from the audience, but the Cloud kunoichi was unimpressed. "Storm Style: Laser Circus!"

A halo of lightning appeared around her hands and then shot forward towards Haku. Haku tried to dodge but Zandeina turned the beams to track her target, closing and landing a direct hit on Haku. Haku froze and shuddered in place as she was shocked for a good four seconds, until Zandeina released the jutsu and started to walk forward, removing her cloak fully. Underneath, her resemblance to the Raikage was noticeable; her dark skin and light hair framing a hard face that was twisted in derision. "You should probably just stay down, Sand girl."

However, Kame knew that Haku would never knew that, and was unsurprised (if still afraid) when his teammate shakily rose to her feet. "No." Haku rolled backwards and reached down, detaching the weights from her legs. Kame had heard stories of Gaara and Rock Lee's fight during the chunin exams from Kankuro, and had an image in his mind of the removal of the leg weights being a huge turning point. However, Haku's weights simply fell to the ground with a clunk, much unlike the tales he'd heard of Rock Lee's weights crashing into the ground hard enough to shatter solid rock.

Zandeina looked at the weights, raising an eyebrow. "What is this? Did you come out here handicapping yourself?" She turned back towards Haku angrily. "Ohh… now you've done it. Treating me like some punching bag for you to train yourself on was a terrible mistake." She threw out a hand to her left and shouted, "Storm Style: Tyrant Whip!" A long stream of lightning extended from her grip, stretching out to maybe ten feet. The Cloud genin spun it around and snapped it a few times in the way that made clear her skill with the weapon.

"I'm not dismissing your skill, I just want to improve to be able to surpass people like you- if I could do it with weights on, then the extra challenge would be a great way to strengthen myself." Haku spoke calmly, slowly backing away from her enraged opponent.

"Surpass me?  _Me?_ "  _I guess that was the wrong thing to say…_  "I'm the daughter of the Raikage, heir to the Storm Release kekkegenkai and prodigy of the Hidden Cloud! How's this for an 'extra challenge'!?" Zandeina swung the whip forward and it extended far longer than it should have, forcing Haku to duck underneath it. Expertly, she pulled the whip back in and snapped it forward again, this time in a straight line, and Haku again had to jump back to dodge it.

_Oh, crap,_  Kame thought, realizing what the Lightning shinobi's plan was.  _Haku's in a bad spot-_  and she was, because she'd been forced backwards by the constant attacks until she was up against the arena wall.  _Now she can only dodge in three directions._  Zandeina smirked and shouted, "Storm Style: Crackling Doom!" The jutsu spread out in a flat cone before her, covering any attempts to move to the left or right. Haku was forced to leap straight up and over the attack, but helpless in midair as she was, Zandeina was free to swing the whip at her.

This time, it made solid contact with her leg, and a vicious yank brought Haku crashing down into the earth. The Sand kunoichi made a valiant effort to stand, but Zandeina pulled on the whip once again, taking out Haku's feet from under her. "Storm Style: Heaven Execution!"  _That doesn't sound good._  Kame started forward a little bit when he saw the gathering of storm chakra over where Haku lay prone. After a few seconds, all of it struck down towards the ground, but Haku rolled out of the way in the nick of time. The spot where she'd been was left as a smoking black blast crater.  _If she takes a direct hit from that, then she's done for,_ thought Kame.  _Come on Haku, find a way out of that whip._

Haku appeared to share his line of thinking, glancing down at the lightning whip attached to her leg. Then a strange smile appeared on her face and, still prone on the ground, she kicked her leg up and towards her. Zandeina was ripped forward and flung over to where Haku lay, and upon her arrival was met with a brutal kick to the midsection that sent her flying out into the open air. She lost her grip on the whip and it spluttered out, freeing Haku.

With her opponent now in midair, Haku grinned and launched into her Sand Devil attack, spinning forwards and over the Cloud ninja. The first strike connected and sent Zandeina streaking down onto the earth, but as Haku descended after her, she seemed to regain enough lucidity to make a series of seals. "Lightning Style: Thunder Cage!" A web of lightning crackled to life around her on the ground, and when Haku's leg came down onto it, the smaller girl was blasted back and rolled to a halt ten meters away.

When the two ninja took to their feet, Haku was clearly the worse for the wear, breathing heavily and marked up with ash and dirt from the attacks she'd suffered. Zandeina, on the other hand, seemed almost pristine. Her white skirt beneath her Cloud vest was completely clean, and she stood just as confidently as she had when the fight started. However, what  _had_  changed was her expression.  _She's… she must be like Naruko, angry about people she considers 'weak' holding their own against her…_

"Alright,  _Haku_ ," Zandeina spat. "You've had your little fun running around. If you don't use a jutsu, I'm going to hurt you." Haku opened and closed her mouth, glancing briefly towards the crowds of people watching and murmuring.  _She doesn't want to say that she can't do it in front of all these strangers, especially not when she's being judged for promotion to chunin rank._ "What? Am I not worth your goddamn jutsu!? I'll make you regret treating me like a joke!"

Zandeina flashed through a long series of seals, and the air around her started crackling with electricity. Finally, she slammed her palms together and said, in a low and hateful voice far more terrifying than her yells, "Storm Style: Breath of the Lightning Dragon." The chakra condensed over her head, forming into the shape of a massive dragon's head. The jaw opened, and then out poured a huge wave of storm release lightning, tearing across the ground and hitting Haku square-on.

The attack was over as soon as it had started, leaving Haku actually  _smoking_  as she stood there weakly.  _Is it over?_  Kame thought, leaning forward anxiously. Then she twitched a little bit and coughed, starting to move-

Another volley of lightning tore out from the dragon's maw, and then another. Haku was mercilessly blasted over and over again, crying out in pain and shocked too much to move. After five rounds, Zandeina paused again. "Had enough? Come on, you little whore, hit me with something. Lightning, Fire, Water, I don't care. I won't be disrespected like this in front of my father!"

Haku coughed out, "I'm not-" but Zandeina didn't let her finish, starting into another round of lightning attacks.  _How is Haku still standing?_ wondered Kame. A little part of him whispered that she should just give in, fall over and lose the match, but the majority of his mind was simply torn-  _I don't want to watch her hurt by losing in the first round, but I also can't watch her in pain like this._   _This Zandeina girl is…"_

Suddenly, Kosu was standing beside him. "I'm sorry."

Kame ripped his eyes from the battle to glance at the Cloud genin quizzically. "What?"

The thin boy looked at the field sadly. "Zandeia has always pushed herself to excel, but she lets that dream lead her into doing despicable things." Another blast of lightning from the battlefield lit up the bitter expression that Kosu wore. "She used to be less… like this, but that was back when everyone treated her like a princess. Eventually, we got put into a genin squad with Torino-sensei, who treated her just like he treated everyone else. They fought all the time, and she's just been getting angrier and angrier over the last couple of years. He finally agreed that we were ready for the chunin exams this year, and she sees this as her chance to escape him."

Kame turned away from the other genin. "So she's just angry about not being spoiled? That's my teammate, my  _friend_  out there getting electrocuted in front of a crowd of thousands, and that's your excuse?"

Kosu set his mouth in a line, seemingly lost for words. Kame gripped the railing tightly, his morbid curiosity forcing him to watch every round of Haku's torment.  _If I end up against Zandeina, I'll… I'll…_

Zandeina finally let up once more, and Haku collapsed to the ground lifelessly. "Huh. You really thought you could do it without jutsu right up until the end, didn't you? You idiot. You just  _had_  to make sure that I didn't look good, didn't you? Hopefully my-" She stopped talking when Haku slowly but surely raised herself into a kneeling position. "What the hell- nobody can take that and still be able to move!"

Kame's knuckles went white as Haku painfully lifted herself onto her feet.  _If she takes any more, she'll…_  He couldn't stop himself from calling out, "Haku! Stop, don't do it. Just…"  _Let her win_ , he thought, but couldn't put into words. "Please, don't sacrifice yourself like this…"

She turned around to weakly smile at him. "I won't lose, not like this. You chose me, Shira chose me, Rock Lee chose me. If I lose in the first round, I'm failing all of you." As she spoke, something strange happened- her eyes changed. Tiny black lines appeared in a circle around the edges of her eyes, gradually forcing their way inwards in a spiraling pattern. They slowed to a stop about halfway to her pupil, touching the edges of her purple iris.  _Is that… her kekkegenkai?_

Seemingly unaware of what she'd unlocked, Haku turned back to Zandeina. "You want me to use elemental jutsu to fight you? Fine, then." She assumed a different stance, now angled forwards with her arms back behind her. "Lightning Stance!" The familiar aura of lightning energy crackled to life around her, causing Zandeina to step back a little bit.

However, the Cloud kunoichi soon recovered. "Lightning? It won't help you." She shouted and the dragon spat another blast of storm energy at Haku.  _Even if she found a second wind somehow, in her state another round of that might kill her!_  Kame's eyes widened, though, at what happened next.

The storm release lightning arced forward towards Haku, but upon nearing her it  _slowed_  somehow and swirled around her, spinning inwards until it met her hands. She remained completely unharmed even as Zandeina defiantly launched another barrage of attacks, each one seemingly negated.  _Is this the chakra-consumption kekkegenkai? She's using it in front of all the Kage; this could be bad…_  but Kame's thoughts trailed off, too enthralled by the events unfolding before him to consider any lasting consequences.

Zandeina's attacks stopped, and she appeared to be breathing heavily, perhaps nearing her own limit. "What the hell is this!? That's just cheating, you-"

In a crackle of electricity, Haku flashed behind her opponent. Zandeina turned, far too slowly to do anything, as Haku reached forwards and grabbed her by the sides. Upon the physical contact, Zandeina seemed to freeze from a shock of some sort. Then, in another flash too fast to track with the eyes, Haku suplexed the cloud girl so hard that a cloud of dust was knocked up and obscured the area.

When it cleared, Haku was standing haggardly, all traces of lightning stance or kekkegenkai gone, but Zandeina was crumpled up on the ground. There were actual cracks in the dirt where she'd been thrust head-first, and an expression of shock was locked on her unconscious face. The proctor stepped over gingerly, checked her, and then turned around with an expression of disbelief on his face. "Winner by knockout: Haku!"

The arena erupted into confused cheering, quiet at first but growing in volume as more and more people fully realized what had happened. Kosu's jaw dropped, and he sagged a little bit into the railing of the balcony. "What… but… without even using any jutsu, she…"

_I think I'll let him keep thinking that she's only half-trying…_  Kame smiled wide, watching Haku walk off of the field waving at the crowds.  _I guess me and Miriki have to win our rounds as well, now._


End file.
